Energy Needs Wll Be Met - Minister

Kwabenya (Greater Accra Region), 10 Nov. The Minister of Mines and Energy, Mr. Fred Ohene-Kena, said today his Ministry has put in place a strategy to meet the country's energy demand within the short term to accommodate the rate of economic and industrial growth. The strategy, he said, is to expand and diversify the country's energy resources and supply base and to ensure sustainable and equitable distribution of energy to all sectors of the economy. Mr. Ohene-Kena was giving the keynote address at the opening of the Fourth Kumasi International College on Energy at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC), Kwabenya. The college, under the theme ''Generating Electricity from Alternative Energy Sources'', is being organized by the Ministry of Mines and Energy and the Energy Research Group under the auspices of the Volta River Authority (VRA), DANAFCO, and other organizations. Mr. Ohene-Kena stated, however, that with a projected electricity consumption growth estimated at about 15 per cent annually and with demand for electricity exceeding supply, there is the looming danger of power shortage that could pose serious threats to Ghana's plans of becoming a middle income country by the year 2020. ''The greatest constraint in power generation has been that of inadequate rainfall in the catchment area of the Volta River which supplies 95 per cent of Ghana's power needs from two hydro based stations at Akosombo and Kpong,'' he stated. Mr. Ohene-Kena said since ''our public electricity supply is hydro based, any time there is drought in the Volta basin, electricity generation suffers as it was the case in 1983 and 1994 when the power utilities had to embark on power curtailment''. To improve the operations of the power sector, he said his ministry has instituted policy reforms which include the diversification of power generation to the use of thermal based systems. The reforms also include the accelerated development of natural gas-based power schemes to complement the oil-based thermal plant at Aboadze which is expected to run on gas instead of oil immediately the former is available. They also involve the diversification of the hydro-based power from the Volta River to other potentially stable hydro basins in the Western parts of the country like the Pra, Tano, and Ankobra rivers. Also included is a new regime in electricity supply and generation which allow for the development of power generation and distribution by the private sector. ''All these policy reforms are not meant only to attract private capital but also to introduce price competition in power supply,'' he said, adding that the policy reforms are already yielding results.