GHANA cover and potentially increase the developer upside ; and
• Long-term concession – Whereby a private company receives a long-term concession to manage and operate existing transmission assets and is in charge of expanding the transmission grid in its area of operation .
The above structures are not mutually exclusive . The key point is that each strives , in its own way , to mitigate some of the more fundamental blocks to private investment , and most critically the need to expedite the development process ; the tyranny of time being the curse of many otherwise financially and developmentally sound projects .
Furthermore , increasing the involvement of national and multilateral financial institutions that can offer additional funding , subsidies and innovative financing structures would successfully encourage further private sector investment . Such institutions can offer governments critical skills in areas such as transaction support , planning and risk allocation – and they can embed those skills in government entities . For example , in 2019 , AfDB , through its Africa Investment Forum ( AIF ) platform , helped secure 52 deals worth US $ 40bn of investment towards infrastructure in Africa . 7
Ghana Power transmission is the vital middle sub-sector in the three broad components that make up a power / electricity grid , ie generation , transmission and distribution .
The power sector in Ghana The Volta River Authority ( VRA ) was established in 1961 by the Volta River Development Act , 1961 ( Act 46 ). The same legislation prescribed the functions of the VRA , vital among these being the generation of electrical power for domestic and industrial use in Ghana , the construction and operation of a power transmission system and the distribution of electricity to consumers at low voltages . 8 This resulted in a considerable mandate on the VRA from the onset . In 1967 , however , the Electricity Corporation Decree , 1967 ( NLCD 125 ) established the Electricity Corporation of Ghana ( ECG ), which assumed the sole electricity distribution responsibilities of the VRA nationwide . In order to reduce the burden on the ECG , the VRA later created the Northern Electrification Department ( NED ) in 1987 and the organisation subsequently took over the distribution mandate in the Northern regions of Ghana . 9
• GRIDCo development and operations – The current framework and layout of the power sector in Ghana is largely as a result of Power Sector Reforms undertaken by the Ghanaian government in the late 1990s . These reforms included the creation of an Energy Commission in 1997 to oversee the technical regulation of the electricity , natural gas and renewable energy industries , the formation of the Public Utilities
Regulatory Commission in the same year to provide guidelines for the tariffs and charges on public utility services and , importantly , the unbundling of the then vertically-integrated Volta River Authority among other developments . 10
The latter of the changes was initiated pursuant to the Energy Commission Act , 1997 ( Act 541 ) and the Volta River Development ( Amendment ) Act , 2005 Act 692 ; with these laws providing for the exclusive operation of the National Interconnected Transmission System by a single independent public utility upon the grant of a transmission licence by the Board of the Energy Commission . 11 This licence was granted to Ghana Grid Company ( GRIDCo ) and the organisation commenced operations in 2008 as the main organ responsible for power transmission in Ghana following its receipt of the requisite electricity transmission assets and core staff from the VRA . 12
Despite these and the other changes made within the framework of the Power Sector Reforms , the issue of inconsistent power supply has remained a significant challenge facing the power sector in Ghana over the past few decades . A major cause of the inconsistent power is a lack of adequate and reliable infrastructure in the electricity transmission sector . Ghana for example is estimated to lose US $ 100m annually from transmission losses or leakages .
Nevertheless , and notwithstanding the gap in diversification of power generation , 13 the position at present is one of over-capacity in the powergeneration sector . The magnitude and effect of this overproduction was made clear in the Ghana 2019 Mid-Year Fiscal Policy Review presented by the Finance Minister to Parliament , where it was revealed that the installed capacity of the generating subsector at 5,083MW was nearly double the peak demand at the time , 2,700MW . 14 Ghana had to bear costs exceeding C2.5bn annually for power generation capacity that was neither needed nor consumed . 15 Regardless , this surplus capacity has not resulted in constant power supply , due in part to inadequacies in the electricity transmission infrastructure .
• Technical challenges – Demand for electricity in Ghana has grown dramatically over recent years and is showing no signs of slowing down in times to come . The past five years have seen an annual growth rate of 10.3 % in electricity demand , with peak system demand figures moving from 2,118MW in 2015 to 3,090MW in 2020 . Within the same time span , total annual electricity consumption rose from 11,678GWh to 19,717GWh . 16 This growth in demand can generally be attributed to economic growth , urbanisation and increases in industrial activity . 17
Over this same period , power transmission facilities have also been expanded . As of 2016 , the National Interconnected Transmission System consisted of approximately 5,207.7 circuit km of high voltage transmission lines employed to connect the operating power generation plants at Akosombo , Kpong , Bui , Tema and Aboadze to the
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