[ 2016-10-27 ]

Fighting Dumsor With Alternative Energy

The elders have a saying that “you cannot give
up on God while there is still light.”


The entirety of Sub-Saharan Africa produces less
energy than South Korea – despite having more
than 18 times its population. Compared to the rest
of the continent, Ghana has one of the highest
rates of access to electricity.


However, in many instances the demand is often too
high to be met. Breakdown of the machinery used to
generate electricity – often faulty from the
continuous interruptions of energy- lack of fuel
to power them, or issues in distributions, are
only some of the reasons for the shortages.
Another key factor is climate change and the
drought forcing Akosombo Dam – the country’s
main source of energy for over half a century –
to operate at minimum capacity.


In February 2015, President John Dramani Mahama,
then entering his third year of elected office,
delivered his State of the Nation Address,
promising to ‘fix this energy challenge.’
Ghana, he remarked, had already witnessed a
similar dumsor situation in 1983, 1998 and
2006/7.


Within the end of the year, the government
established an energy sector levy and an energy
debt recovery levy, commissioned Kpone Thermal
Power Plant and paved the way for the most bizarre
emergency solution to energy inefficiency to have
yet docked – literally – to Ghanaian soil.


The Karadeniz Powership Aysegul Sultan power barge
is a floating power plant with a surface bigger
than a football field and six turbines generating
an average of 210 MW, around 11% of Ghana’s
total energy supply.


Stamped with a thick, black ‘Power of
Friendship’ writing that covers various feet on
one of its sides, the power barge sailed in from
Turkey and moored into Tema harbor on November 27,
2015. Once its on-board high voltage substations
were connected to the national grid, it
immediately started delivering power – ten days
after arrival.


March 3, 2016 - Tema, Ghana: The engine room of
the Karpowership Aysegul Sultan in Tema Harbor.
The powership was brought in from Turkey and can
produce 250MW of power, directly connected to
Ghana's grid.

March 3, 2016 – Tema, Ghana: The engine room of
the Karpowership Aysegul Sultan in Tema Harbor.
The powership was brought in from Turkey and can
produce 250MW of power, directly connected to
Ghana’s grid.


It would have taken much longer to build a plant
and put it on the ground, argued the Turkish and
Ghanaian personnel of the barge during a tour of
the facility in March. Plus, it’s cheaper than
thermal plants: it runs on heavy fuel oil, which
costs less than light crude oil, and has the
option to run on natural gas in the future,
depending on supply and fluctuation in
international market prices.


The first of its kind in Africa – the Turkish
company has powerships in Iraq, Lebanon,
Indonesia, and only recently started one in Zambia
– the “Power of Friendship for Ghana”
project was met by a mix of skepticism and sarcasm
by Ghanaians. Before its arrival, a radio station
said the barge didn’t exist and called it a
phantom ship. After it started operating, people
argued that the government would spend too much
money on a temporary fix instead of building more
long-lasting and sustainable energy sources.


According to the company though, it could save
Ghana $120 million a year, and another power barge
is expected to call the country home next
September: Karadeniz and the Electricity Company
of Ghana have already a signed a 10-year contract,
expecting the two powerships to produce 450MW of
electricity.


“A day after Independence Day, still
celebrating and having a good time?” Lexis Bill
asks into the microphone, surrounded by a fortress
of screens and tangled cables in the recording
studio at Joy 99.7 FM in Accra.


The radio presenter, DJ and all-around celebrity,
has a captivating, round voice, and expects no
answers. Every day, his show ‘Drive Time’
keeps Ghanaians company from 3 to 8pm, usually
while they’re stuck in traffic before, during,
or after work.


“Well here’s something interesting: yesterday
I was driving through town and I realized some
parts didn’t have lights and some other parts
did!” Bill continues. “We are excited that
dumsor is getting better, now we are getting more
power even though we are paying higher. So my
question for you now is – would you rather have
more light and pay more, or less light and pay
like you were paying one year or two ago?”


The arrival of the power barge coincided with the
‘end’ of the dumsor era, officially called in
late December 2015 – in time for the Christmas
holiday. Power cuts have since occurred less and
Ghanaians have been paying for slightly more
stable electricity — sometimes.


“People try to cheat the system,” says Erasmus
Baidoo, ECG’s Ashanti Regional Public Relations
Officer. “They rather bypass the meter or they
find a way to tamper with the meter so that
instead of recording very accurately, the meter
will not record at all. Or it will be giving wrong
figures.”


According to Baidoo, only around 40 percent of
ECG’s customers pay their bills voluntarily,
without any prompting. Hence the company – which
counts millions of dollars in debts, owed by the
government – has had to come up with a way to
chase customers to pay bills for a service that
has been intermittent, at best, for years: prepaid
meters. For now though, the solution is bringing
more questions than answers.


“What about the 60 percent [of customers that
don’t pay]? Are you going to arrest everybody?
Will you deny them power because they have not
paid their bills?”


A similar question — how to get cheap energy for
everyone, even the ones who cannot afford paying
those bills— is on the mind of Raymond Ayayee
and Daniel Nashief, as they watch a golden liquid
boil over in a separatory funnel, smoke twirling
out of it.


“Tires can become diesel. I can get carbon
black, which can be used in ink and paint. I can
get heating gas […] and I can get the oil, which
can be used as substitute to diesel. Which is
ok,” rambles Nashief, a biochemist. Ayayee, a
waste management consultant and Nashief’s
business partner, frowns slightly, immediately
catching himself and repairing to his usual
confident look.

Source - Leticia Osei, Ultimatefm

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