News:
March 3, 2014
The Minister for Energy and Petroleum, Mr Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, has appealed to power utilities to intensify public education on energy conservation.
He said Ghanaians needed to ingrain energy conservation attitudes into their daily activities and help to sustain the supply of adequate power.
“We have had a situation in the early days in Ghana where electricity was so abundant that we missed the opportunity of inculcating energy conservation habits”, he said, adding that the time had come to realize that electricity is now very expensive.
The Minister was speaking at a meeting with bulk customersincluding mining companies and the power utilities– the Volta River Authority (VRA), the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG)—in Accra.
The meeting was convened to discuss the acute power shortfall during peak periods resulting partly from the erratic gas supply from Nigeria and some generation units shut down for maintenance.
The discussions focused on moves to reduce power supply to bulk customers during peak periods for March after which normal supply is expected to be restored.
This is to prevent any form of load management or load shedding.
The Minister called on Ghanaians to switch off their appliances when not in use so as to conserve power, adding that that was the major way in which citizens can take control of their consumption and help government to sustain supply.
He said one of the challenges the country was facing included the availability of fuel for the power plants, hence the decision to form the first gas task force to ensure early delivery of gas from the Jubilee field.