Business News of Wednesday, 4 November 2015

Source: classfmonline.com

VRA to add 110MW to grid by end of year

Kpong project Kpong project

State power producer Volta River Authority (VRA) has said it will add 110 megawatts of power to the national grid before the year ends.

The VRA has also promised to add additional 110 megawatts of power by February 2016 for an accumulated 220 megawatts of power early next year.

This was revealed by Mr Francis Agbenyo, Project Manager of the Kpong Thermal Power Plant (KTPP), when Minister of Power, Dr. Kwabena Donkor paid a working visit to the site on Wednesday, November 4.

Dr Donkor promised to resign by the end of the year if the current erratic power situation persisted beyond 2015. Prior to his tour of the Kpong plant, he had reiterated that the power situation would be normalised by the end of the year.

The Project Manager, who is confident the situation will be brought under control, said in order to increase the efficiency of the plant, the VRA will add a steam component to increase its capacity to 330 megawatts in the phase one of its operations, and 450 megawatts during the second phase.

“After the KTPP is completely developed, we will be talking about having between 700 and 800 megawatts of power,” he said.

Mr Agbenyo added that the VRA is conducting studies for other phases of the KTPP while financing is also being worked on.

The KTPP project was expected to be completed in 2018, but Mr. Agbenyo said the completion date has been moved to 2019/2020.