The Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) says demand for power in the next 10 years will exceed 6,000 megawatts due to the growing economic expansion in the country.
Presently, the nation’s peak demand for electricity is a little above 3,000 megawatts, it said.
“It is possible [that] if we continue to grow our economy, the demand in the next 10 years could be more than 6,000 megawatts,” the Director of Systems Operations for GRIDCo, Mark Awuah Baah, revealed.
GRIDCo wants the country’s economic expansion to move in tandem with the growth in electricity to prevent inadequate power in the future.
Mr Baah said that more should be done to generate enough electricity for Ghana to boost its economy.
“Now, it is 3,200 megawatts. So between 2008, which is 1,400 megawatts to 2,800 megawatts in 2018/2019, it means that in 10 years, Ghana doubled its demand.”
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“So, we all have to work in a way to ensure that we don’t enter into such a period because we have to continue to grow if we want to see people being employed, people working, people enjoying quality power at their homes,” he added.
Meanwhile, he stated that GRIDCo has installed over 5,200 megawatts (MW) plant capacity and over 6,400 circuit kilometres of transmission lines throughout the country since 2008 when it began operations.
Mr Baah stressed that the government’s vision of revamping the country’s energy sector to provide stable and reliable power to Ghanaians is on course after completing the Accra Central and the Pokuase Bulk Supply Plant (BSP).
“We want to improve on our transmission capacity, and we do that because we are planning the system in such a way so that should any part of the country go off as a result of maintenance or fault, the customer should not even sense it because the remaining BSPs can come in to support,” he said.
Other energy sector projects like the Kasoa BSP, upgrade of major transmission lines between Accra and Tema and upgrade transmission lines in Kumasi are ongoing.