THE Country again experienced a nationwide blackout on Wednesday, March 21, the third in a row after similar occurrences on January 28, and February 26, this year.
The recurrence followed a similar trend in the past resulting from the conduct of load shedding exercises by the three power providers, the Volta River Authority (VRA), the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
While such incidents were said to be the result of malfunctioning equipment, the recent occurrence was said to have resulted from inadequate generation reserve margin to take care of emergencies in the event of collapse.
The country’s energy requirement keeps increasing with an increase in population and economic activities, however, supply in recent times on the other hand had become epileptic in nature.
Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s post independence struggle foresaw demands for electricity demand especially when Ghana embarked on industrialisation as a development strategy, and therefore set up the Akosombo generating station and the VRA.
In realisation of the provision of sustainable energy for development, Ghana as well became the first sub-Saharan African country to establish a National Nuclear Research Institute and the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC).
Fifty years down the line, the dam has however proved to be inadequate in catering for the country’s energy needs.
For this reason, the Aboadze plant was established in 1997 to provide extra 330 megawatts of power to support national demand.
Additionally, the Bui Power project is expected to come on stream in 2013 to provide additional 400 megawatts to the country’s total national demand.
Whereas successive governments have paid lip service in terms of commitment pledges, little action have been seen on their part.
While, the Atomic Energy, for example could strengthen the power generating sector by turning uranium into a source of power (nuclear power), little commitment has been showed in that regard.
As a result of under-investment, most of the machinery in operation are obsolete, while initiated projects remained stagnant with no hope of resurrection.
While Ghana’s economy has grown significantly in the past 20 years, the country’s overall energy production has remained under capacity.
Although, political leaders are willing to take a general policy direction to forestall failure of power systems, their decision making have however been reactionary.
Bureaucracy and dishonesty, resulting in acts of alledged corruption on the part of managers of the three providers have as well made it difficult for transmission and distribution networks to deliver reliable power to more than the over one million of customers on its transmission networks.
With consumption growing at 10 to 15 per cent per annum for the last two decades and a projected average demand, consumption of electricity is expected to reach 10,100 gigawatt hours (GWh) by the end of 2012, which have been described as below the country’s total national power demand which has increased astronomically.
Even though government’s commitment in the area of capital injection into the operations of power producers and distributors had been minimal and sometimes non-existent, managers of such entities have also created a messy atmosphere laced with ineptitude in the administration of these institutions.
Ironically, while consumers were made to endure total blackouts resulting from load shedding exercises, the spillways of the Akosombo Dam were often opened to spill excess water anytime it rose to about 277 feet.
That was to ensure limitations in the water level, only for consumers to be made to suffer from the consequential decisions taken by the “competent” engineers and managers.
Erratic power supply does not only go to over-burden industries and manufacturing firms, but also have dire consequences on the country’s total economic output, thus making us retrogress, when we are supposed to progress.
Security implications as a result of nationwide blackouts could also not be ruled out.
With the emerging oil industry which has brought to the fore the need for more energy, the situation calls for a search for an alternative source of energy.
Countries such as Denmark, Norway, Canada and others have learned their lessons, transforming their energy markets and setting out to lead the way in renewable energy resources.
Ghana on the other hand ,has in abundance, a huge concentrated heat source, but little has been done in that regard as an option to complement the country’s power demand.
Already, government officials have started singing the lip service song of renewable energy likely to form 10 per cent of the country’s energy generation by 2020, as provided in the Renewable Energy act.
The question is, why do we have to wait until 2020 to realise the 10 per cent fraction, when oil production which began some 14 months ago has brought to the fore the need for more energy, resulting from excessive pressure on existing facilities?
At 55, Ghana is expected to wait for an additional eight more years for better investments in clean and renewable energy power generation, of which we expect to reap a 10 per cent result.
Neighbouring Nigeria, over the last decade has been battling unreliability in its electricity industry.
In the case of Ghana, could recent occurrences be tabled at the doorstep of political leadership’s failure or the lack of interest in a sector that has become a money making tool for some countries across the world.
Ironically, we go to seek the expertise of such countries, fly personnel down, and pay them huge incentives to develop and install solar panels, all at the cost of the tax-payer, when we could have adequately built the capacity of the numerous human resources at our availability from the Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and the Atomic Energy.
Political leadership must rise up and exploit the country’s natural resources that could lead a crusade for an alternative source of energy for developmental needs.
SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, Tue April 3, 2012
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