Who: The government of Ghana; Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) – Ghana's electricity transmission company; Karpowership Ghana Company Limited– subsidiary of Turkey's Karadeniz Holding
What & When: Reports suggest that negotiations are in their advanced stages between Turkey's Karpowership and ECG for the Turkish power firm to supply Ghana with 225MW more than originally agreed. This follows on from the signing of a ten-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) between Karpowership and ECG in June 2014 for the former to provide two power barges, each with a capacity of 225 MW, at an estimated cost ofUS$1 billion1. The first power barge which had a generation capacity of 225MW arrived in Ghana's ports in November, 2015. The project which was labeled, "Power of Friendship for Ghana" was the first of its kind in Africa2. However, since then, in view of the chronic power shortages in Ghana, negotiations have progressed to the extent that Karpowership may well add a further 225MW of power to the second barge, which would bring total power to 675 MW. If negotiations prove fruitful for ECG, the second 450MW barge is expected to arrive in Tema, Ghana, by November, 2016.
Why: According to the Finder newspaper, this agreement, among others, was signed to find a solution to the dismaying power outages in the country. Karpower was contracted because aside from generating power at the lowest cost, there is a reliable supply of Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) needed to power the ships from the Ghana National Petroleum Company (GNPC)3.
Outlook: If the negotiations go in ECG's favour, it would mean that 220 MW will go some distance towards alleviating the country's chronic power crisis, but not far enough. According to the Volta River Authority, Ghana country has dependable capacity of 1915MW but requires between 2800MW and 3000MW to comfortably meet both domestic and commercial needs. They say that drastic times call for drastic measures and when homes and businesses are experiencing power outages sometimes of up to three or four times in a day, it is clear that Ghana has returned to the darkened days of Dumsor, thus an urgent solution is required. However, the Karpowership deal has not been without criticism, not least of all from the opposition, which has vocalised that the deal will be disadvantageous to Ghanaians4. This raises the question as to whether the deal will prevail, should Ghana's administration change political hands at the ballot box in December this year.
Footnotes
1 https://www.modernghana.com/news/661545/the-controversy-behind-the-karpower-power-barge-purchase.html
2 http://www.ghanaiantimes.com.gh/karpowerships-to-save-ghana-120m-annually/
3 http://www.thefinderonline.com/News/450MW-power-barge-coming.html
4 http://www.peacefmonline.com/pages/politics/politics/201506/244367.php
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