By Nicholas Osei-Wusu
The Minister for Energy and Green Transition, John Abdulai Jinapor has assured residents of the Ashanti region, particularly the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area of a stable power supply this week following the near completion of an upgrading of the existing generation capacity of the Bulk Supply point at Anwomaso in the Oforikrom Municipality.
Mr. Jinapor made this known during an inspection tour of the sites of the projects.
“Let me commend GRIDCo for completing this transformer. It’s going to play a very significant role as far as power delivery is concerned. What we witnessed over the past two days has to do with the fact that, when you’re switching from one transformer to another, you’ve some few challenges. So let me assure the people of Kumasi that, that problem has been resolved and we look forward to a very improved power delivery of power”, the Minister told journalists.
Residents of parts of the Ashanti region have been experiencing unstable power supply in recent weeks with the situation worsening during the weekend causing a spontaneous public outcry by power consumers.
This caught the attention of the Energy and Green Transition Minister, who had to make an emergency visit the region to better appreciate the matter.
He was accompanied by the leadership of all the three foremost state institutions in the energy value chain.
These are the Ghana Grid Company, Volta River Authority and Electricity Company of Ghana.
At the Anwomaso Bulk Supply Station in the Oforikrom Municipality, the Minister was told that, the weekend’s worsened unstable power supply to the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area was mainly as a result of the upgrading of the capacity of a generator from 66 MVA to 145 MVA which was virtually complete at the time of the visit.
The Director of Northern Network of GRIDCo, Benjamin Ntsin took the Minister and his team through the situation.
“Previously, the total capacity of this station was 198 MVA. With the installation of the new one, we now have 277, an increase of about 79. That’s the transformation that has happened here. What this means is that, ECH can now pick additional 70 Megawatts from here for distribution”, he informed the Minister.
Mr. Jinapor inspected also installation works on Ameri plants.
They as well toured the sites for the installation of combined gas-diesel generating plants by two of the Independent Power Producers, Cenit and Aska Energy, all within the Anwomaso enclave.
The projects were at different stages of construction.
Upon completion, latest by end of this year, the IPPs are expected to add about 700 megawatts of power to the stream.
This, the Minister disclosed, will make Ashanti the new energy generation and supply hub with the capacity to produce in excess for export.
“Kumasi will eventually become a generation hub because we’re looking at the Ameri plants, we’re looking at the Cenit plants here, and we’re looking at Aska plants here. We put all together, we could be hitting close to 700 Megawatts power delivery from within Kumasi and that will be very very monumental”, he emphasized.
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