The long-awaited Karpower barge from Turkey expected to help address the country’s energy crisis has finally arrived in Tema.
According to Joy News’ Isreal Laryea, the Black Marlin cargo ship which is carrying the Karpower barge docked at the Tema port Saturday morning.
The power barge is expected to add 225 MW to the country’s electricity supply and ease the current energy crisis facing the country.
It was billed to arrive September, after it failed to meet an April deadline.
The vessel carrying the power barge, the Black Marlin, set off from Turkish waters on 6th November, 2015.
Power minister, Dr. Kwabena Donkor had always maintained the barge would be in Ghana twenty-one days after its commissioning on October 27, 2015.
That was eleven days after a ceremony attended by a government delegation in Istanbul to inaugurate the barge.
Officials of the Power Ministry had indicated the barge was on its way to Ghana at the time, but it later emerged it was only being moved to another location also in Turkey.
The twenty-one days deadline by the Minister elapsed when the destination log on the marine traffic website showed that the ship was at Mauritania, 1787 nautical miles away from Ghana.
It got to Ivory Coast on the 22nd of November and finally arrived at Takoradi yesterday, November 27. The Power Ministry says consumers will be responsible for paying for power from Karpower barge.
Deputy Energy Minister John Jinapor confirmed to Joy News that government is only a facilitator and will not play any role in paying for the services of the power barge from Turkey.
“The payment will be done by the end-user. It will not be done by the government” he stated emphatically.
He, however, explained that experts would have to do inter-connection, after which test-runs would be conducted for weeks before the barge is connected to the national grid.
“If everything proves successful then we will be thinking of connecting it to the national grid and so, it is a process and not an event,” Jinapor said.
But being keen to avoid providing deadlines, the deputy Minister said the barge is expected to be operational in some weeks.
