The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) announced a weighted average increase of 2.45% in electricity tariffs for all consumer categories for the Third Quarter of 2025, effective July 1, 2025.
This decision according to the utility regulator follows a comprehensive quarterly review, balancing significant savings from a stronger national currency against crucial provisions to address historical revenue shortfalls and ensure future power system stability.
The decision to adjust electricity tariffs upward in that quarter on the surface appears to be a minor adjustment but underneath, represents a profound failure to pass on significant economic relief to the people of Ghana.
The PURC’s own data tells a story not of a need for increase, but of an overwhelming justification for a major reduction. The projected exchange rate used for tariff calculation strengthened by 34.35%, moving from GHS transmission and distribution observed reduction.
The core cost of the electricity consumed in Ghana is built on three pillars: Generation, Transmission, and Distribution. The PURC’s Table 2 in its 2025 Third Quarter Natural Gas, Electricity & Water Tariff Decis15.6974/US$ in Q2 to GHS 10.3052/US$ in Q3, implying that all most of the cost elements from generation, ion shows that in the third quarter, every single one of these pillars saw massive cost reductions.
The Bulk Generation Charge, the very cost of producing power, plummeted by 34.03%. The composite charge from all power producers fell by 27.18%. The cost attributed to losses in transmission and distribution fell by over 26%.
The Sum of all these decreases including reduction in generation, transmission, and distribution costs accounts for the total net saving amounts to a staggering 72.75 Ghana pesewas for every single unit of electricity consumed (kwh).
The energy outlook for 2025 published by Energy Commission estimates that total electricity consumption for 2025 is 25,836 GWh, implying that electricity consumption averagely for each quarter is estimated at 6459Gwh.
Based on quarterly consumption data and savings of Ghp/kwh72.75 influenced by the appreciation of the cedi, the estimated total savings for the period is about Ghc4.7 billion, and the net savings is about Ghc3.2 billion (deductions of transmission and technical losses of 31%).
The usage of an over-recovery of Ghc3.2 billion would have seen electricity tariff in the third quarter decline by about 20% because net monetary effect would be an over-recovery of Ghc667 million, and not the under-recovery of Ghc166 million as indicated by the PURC.
Interestingly, the PURC acknowledges windfall, generated primarily by the 34% appreciation of our Cedi yet decided to use a lower boundary consumption to compute the total monetary value of the windfall, denying electricity tariff reduction benefits to poorer households from James Town to Pusiga.
The very purpose of the quarterly review is to reflect changes in macroeconomic factors. The most significant positive change in a generation occurred, and the PURC has decided to filter it away from the people.
The honest, data-driven decision would have been a significant tariff reduction by about 20% in the third quarter of 2025.
The 2.45% increase is not justifiable; it is a betrayal of the economic relief that was rightfully to Ghanaian electricity consumers as a result of the Ghana cedi appreciation, thereby making the electricity users paying more than expected for electricity.
The writer is the executive director for Centre for Environmental Management and Sustainable Energy (CEMSE)
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