The Chamber of Independent Power Producers, Distributors and Bulk Consumers in the Republic of Ghana (CiPDiB) has lauded the German Government for its G20 Africa Initiative, which led to the singing of a €250m deal between GRIDCo and Siemens last week.
Under the agreement, the two companies will work collaboratively to upgrade and extend Ghana’s transmission infrastructure, improve the country’s grid capacity and stability, enable and expand a stable power export to neighbouring countries in the West African Power Pool.
“Access to electricity is an imperative need for the people and business and, thus, for economic success of any economy. As Ghana has significantly invested into generation capacity, there is now an urgent need to build a reliable, affordable and sustainable electrical network for the country and its people. With our proven and unique end-to-end electrification solutions, our expertise and reliability, Siemens can be a technology partner and help the country achieve its objectives,” Joe Kaeser, President and CEO of Siemens.
In a press statement copied to energynewsafrica.com, CiPDiB also commended Ghana’s President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo -Addo for the MoU which secured the € 250m in the quest to improve energy infrastructure in the country.
“The decision reflects our persistent call for government to concentrate on cleaning the entire energy infrastructure aimed at reducing the limitations and inefficiencies in the transmission system, and translate the idle or excess capacities into economic uses or development,” CiPDiB said.
It further observed that the attempt to renovate PPAs was strategic and boost to the sector, since it offer a better solution and also paves way for economic demand for power domestically and also in the West African sub-region.
CiPDiB underscored the for similar support to be given to Ghana’s power distribution company, ECG, since the key challenge to its operation is to reduce inefficiencies and the 24 percent technical and commercial losses. Adding that, the sum of these losses were almost equal to cost of the excess or idle capacities in ECG’s operations.
Source: www.energynewsafrica.com
