Reroy Cables, one of the few indigenous electrical cable manufacturers, has taken a bold step toward energy generation, to support efforts by government to move the country?s generation capacity from a little over 2000megawatts to 5000megawatts by 2016.
Through a subsidiary known as Reroy Energy, the company was, in June 2013, issued a provisional licence by the Energy Commission for the setting up of a combined cycle thermal power plant, with a capacity of some 340megawatts to be located at Kpone.
The company also has a provisional licence for a 50megawatts solar power plant to be located at Kpone as well.
In an interview with the B&FT, Chairperson of the Reroy Group, Mrs Kate Quartey-Papafio, said with high cost of borrowing as its number one challenge, the Group is looking at a ?joint-ventureship? with Turkish partners to bring the projects into fruition.
The group, she said, is looking at 2014 to begin the projects, and is hoping the Ghana Gas will come on board soon enough to provide much needed fuel for the thermal plant.
Poor power supply for the greater part of 2013 resulted in lost output, low revenues, and a general increase in operating costs for a lot of industries.
?When the power is not in there, how can industry survive?? asks Mrs Quartey-Papafio.
The private sector is increasingly seeing its own participation in power generation as the solution to the intermittence power crisis in the country.
Indeed, government admits it cannot single-handedly meet the ever-increasing energy demand, and is therefore looking to the private sector ? Independent Power Producers (IPPs) ? to fill the yawning gap.
The IPPs are however worried about the ability of the Electricity Company of Ghana as an off taker to pay up promptly.
The two IPPs in the system so far ? CENIT Power and Sunon Asogli ? have complained in the past about payment delays by the ECG.
The provisional licence to Reroy Energy is only one out of about seventeen issued by the Energy Commission to various IPPs, with a total generation capacity of 5336megawatts, none of which has taken off yet.
