Mining firms urged to adopt alternative power supply
Speakers at the West African Mining and Power Conference (WAMPOC 2016), have challenged mining companies in the country to adopt an alternative power supply to boost their operations.
According to them, an alternative power supply such as renewable energy would help the companies to reduce cost as well as to help manage the energy crisis in the country.
Speaking at the event in Accra, the Director in charge of Technical Regulations at the Energy Commission (EC), Dr Nii Darko Asante, the Manager in charge of Power Market Operations GRIDCo, Ing Mark Baah, a Director at the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), Mr Mawuli Rockson and the Director in charge of Engineering and Operations at the Volta River Authority (VRA), Ing Ebenezer Koramoa all underscored the need for the country to adopt an alternative source of power to complement the traditional sources.
On the theme: “Sustaining Mining and Power Investments: Meeting Stakeholder Expectations in a Challenging Global Environment”, the event brought stakeholders to deliberate and improve on issues affecting mining and the power sector in Africa.
“Power tariff have gone up significantly over the last few years, unfortunately there are no sign of an end to the increasing power tariff, for residential, non-residential or the mining industry” Dr Asante said.
He noted that “self-generation” of power was very important for mining companies in the country because it provided an opportunity to reduce and manage power costs.
“It also provides business opportunity for power service providers, because renewable energy will play a significant role in self-generation and the cogenerated heat and power offers attractive benefits for the process industry,” he said.
He said all bulk consumers in the country would soon be required to purchase a percentage of their energy from renewable.
Criticism
The government has come under criticisms lately from business concerns for its excessive increase in utility tariff. The business community have bemoaned the ‘alarming increasing cost of electricity’ in the country, describing it as a huge threat to the survival and growth of businesses.
According to them, businesses in the country are already drowning in the doldrums of the macro-economic environment, and such an astronomic rise in the cost of essential element like electricity will ruin businesses -- which will eventually cripple the country’s socio-economic development.
They stated that in as much as government was anxious to finding lasting solution to the perennial energy crisis, it must take into consideration the cost consumers would have to pay.
Organised labour on the other hand has protested what they described as killer taxes on utility. A massive demonstration to press home their demand for a reduction in the tariffs was organised nationwide.
Changing the status quo
Mr Rockson said “the availability of reasonably priced quality power was a pre-requisite for national development but if the country does nothing different about the present situation, with power, we would get the same unacceptable results we have always gotten”.
According to him, the best remedy is to attack the root causes of the challenges we have with power. Compact II addresses the root causes of the energy challenge.
He added that the country had been presented with a credible solution under the Compact II programme to the problem, saying Let’s all work together to make it a reality.
Building capacity
Ing Mark Baah of GRIDCo said the company was well placed to ensure power evacuation to all Bulk Supply Points in the country.
According to him, despite the current tight demand or supply constraint, power was made available to industrial entities and there had never been a day that the mining companies had been called upon to shut down operations as a result of the energy crises
“Ghana has adequate installed generation capacity and issues surrounding fuel supply are being resolved to ensure that the Megawatt (MW) are transformed into Megawatt Hours (Mwh)”he added.
Meeting the demand
Mr Koramoa said the energy demand for Ghana was growing rapidly and there was the need to use variety of sources including renewable energy, and energy efficiency to meet the increasing demand
“Address fuel supply challenges by developing more local gas resources, Local National Gas and exploring alternative thermal fuels was very keen to boost the energy sector,” he said.
Renewable energy and any new fuel sources would not immune to the challenges in the power sector. Thus financial challenges of the power sector need to be addressed.
He said the VRA was committed to build local capacity in all sectors leading to the development of RE technologies in Ghana. It is however obvious the state cannot do it alone without support from the private sector. — GB