The Volta River Authority (VRA) has attributed the current erratic power supply in the country to the loss of about 500 megawatts of its generation capacity.

The loss of the generation capacity, according to the authority, was as a result of damage to some of its power plants, which are currently undergoing maintenance.

Bernard Kofi Ellis, Director, Planning and Business Development, VRA, who made this known at the West African Mining and Power Conference (WAMPOC) in Accra, said they did not envisage that some of the Authority’s plants would be damaged at the time of routine maintenance works.

However, he said their engineers were working around the clock to repair the faulty power plants.

He gave the assurance that the erratic power supply situation would improve by the end of June when most of the power units would be back in service.

As part of mitigation measures, Kofi Ellis said VRA was undertaking more generation projects and would add about 1,000MW of generation capacity over the next five years.

That, he said, included an upgrade of simple cycle plants to combine cycle to reduce cost of supply, pursuing solar, wind and clean coal energy projects.

Kofi Ellis said the company would use liquefied natural gas (LNG) to generate electricity to achieve future gas supply reliability.

Ghana is undergoing a severe load-shedding exercise characterized by unannounced power outage across the country.

The VRA is the dominant power generator in Ghana.

It owns and operates the 1020-megawatt (MW) Akosombo hydroelectric plant, the 160-MW Kpong hydroelectric plant, the 330-hydroelectric TAPCO, the 130-MW Takoradi thermal 3 (T3) plant at Aboadze and the 126-megawatt Tema TI plant.

The VRA also operates the 80-megawatt mines reserve plant and the 50 megawatt Siemens Plant in Tema.