Ministry Of Energy Sets New Power Purchase Policy Directive

The Ministry of Energy says it has reviewed its Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) as a way of dealing with excess capacity payments.

Speaking at a presser organised by the Ministry of Information, the sector Minister, Matthew Opoku Prempeh indicated that varying power purchase agreements in the past, have led to the excess capacity payments.

“Even though these are our government guarantees, all these contracts are take-or-pay. Whether you need the light or not, once the generator generates it, you have to pay for it. That is not made better by the punitive tariff methodology that we have- that PURC tariffs escalate when we have more energy”, he said.

Outlining the new policy, Opoku Prempeh said “the policy directive we have set going forward is that no longer are we going to do take-or-pay, every power generation that is going to come will be take-and-pay. So we will pay for the power that we take. We will also ensure that we increase our generation capacity as and when necessary. We will ensure that in our power mix, we increase the amount of renewable energy”.

He further stated that there will no longer be government guarantees, no tax exemptions and the tariff will be dominated in Ghana cedis and not in dollars.

The new policy, the Ministry assured, will help in the generation of power.

Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini