The Karpower barge expected to significantly add to the country’s electricity supply and ease the current energy crisis has finally started its journey by sea to Ghana from Turkey.
The vessel bringing in the 225 MW capacity barge, the Black Marlin, set off from Turkish waters last night, eleven days after a ceremony attended by a government delegation in Istanbul to inaugurate it.
Though officials of the Power Ministry had indicated the barge was on its way to Ghana at the time, it later emerged it was only being moved to another location also in Turkey.
The Minister, Dr. Kwabena Donkor has always maintained the barge will be in Ghana twenty-one days after its commissioning on October 27, 2015.
The energy desk here at Joy News, however, believes it is unlikely the barge would be in Ghana within the three weeks considering the eleven-day lag in Turkey.
The Black Marlin, according to vessel tracking site, Marine Traffic is estimated to arrive at the port of Ghana’s western neighbor Cote d’Ivoire on November 22. When it eventually arrives in Tema, it could take up to ten days before any of the 225 megawatts of electricity it will generate will be fed into the national grid.
The 225 megawatts will, however, be about the most significant addition to the country’s installed generation capacity during the last almost four years of the energy crisis since the Bui hydro-electric dam and should considerably ease the ongoing load-shedding in the country.
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