Electricity: 162 Communities Connected To National Grid – Ofori-Atta

The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has said that the government continues to expand power generation capacity to meet domestic, commercial and industrial needs of customers.

In this regard, he said, construction works on the 200MW Phase 1 of the 400MW Early Power Project continued in 2021.

Construction works for the Stage 1A are 99.7 percent complete and works for the Stage 1B (56MW) combined cycle are 93 percent complete, Mr Ofori Atta said during the presentation of the 2022 budget statement in Parliament on Wednesday November 17.

He said “In 2022, a joint venture partner will be engaged to undertake the repowering of the T3 Power Project with VRA. 35Mr. Speaker, to ensure power is affordable for industrial, commercial and residential use, Government, in collaboration with key stakeholders, continued with the renegotiation and restructuring of Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs).

“Government has reached agreements with some Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to convert power plants to tolling structures, switch to natural gas, as well as reduce tariffs. This is expected to result in considerable savings to Government and the Nation over the remaining lifespan of the PPAs. These savings are expected to come from a combination of reduced capacity and energy charges across the portfolio.

“Mr. Speaker, in pursuit of The President’s aspiration to achieve universal coverage of electricity by 2024, a total of 162 communities were connected to the national grid thereby increasing the national electricity access rate from 85.17 percent in 2020 to 86.63 percent in 2021. Connections to another 512 communities are at various stages of completion.

“In 2022, we will work to complete many such projects, and approximately 800 towns will be connected to the national grid under the SHEP-4, SHEP-5 and Turnkey Projects. Additionally, Government will select 2,401 communities with a population of 400 and above to be connected to the national grid.”

Source: 3news