Ghana wants to increase the capacity not only to meet the power demand, which grows at 12-14 per cent every year, but also to export electricity to neighboring countries to accelerate growth and improve the GDP.
Ghana’s year-on-year power demand grows by 10 to 15 % with supply generally not meeting set targets. The expanding industrial sector, service sector—especially in banking, communication, and hospitality services—rapid urbanization, the growth of the middle class, and growing incomes, together with overall population growth (about 2.3 % per annum), have become major drivers of increasing electricity demand.
Ghana wants to be a gateway for supplying power to neighboring countries which do not have the resources to generate electricity. Ghanaian wants to give thrust on renewable sources for power generation, with solar photovoltaic and wind energy being the priority.
Ghana projected a need to procure an additional generation capacity of 225 MW by January 2024 and an additional 200 MW by January 2025 to preserve the security of supply in Ghana.
There is a stated desire to add more renewable sources such as by harnessing wind power on the coast and establishing solar parks in appropriate areas.
The government is developing incentives to attract manufacturers, assemblers, and other operators in this subsector.
According to the Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC), the following needs exist in the power sector:
Street lighting.
Companies to supply energy-monitoring equipment to better meet the increased requests for power monitoring and tariff analysis from industry in the country.
Companies to provide an alternative decentralized sustainable energy system that can easily be deployed in remote and deprived communities.
Companies to provide solar vaccine refrigerators for the preservation of vaccines for child immunization programs in remote and off-grid parts of the country.
Provision of solar energy systems to schools in off-grid communities.
New, higher quality and cost competitive energy services to low-income communities for cooking, transport, water heating and other home appliances.
Challenges that are opportunity in the sector
The Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) in 2014 estimated Ghana to lose between $320 million and $924 million per annum in productivity and economic growth due to the current energy crises.
The Wholesale Power Reliability Assessment report (2010) also estimated that Ghana loses between 2 and 6 % of gross domestic product (GDP) annually due to inadequate and unreliable power supply.
The power sector faces a host of challenges, including inadequate power supply infrastructure that requires huge investment, over-reliance on hydro and gas, inadequate access to electricity, high cost of fuel for electricity generation, transmission and distribution losses, Future power development faces great challenges due to rising living standards and increasing demand for cleaner energy.
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