Board Chairman of United Bank for Africa (UBA)-Ghana and former Volta River Authority CEO has urged the government to sign a new power generation agreement to prevent possible power crises and outages.

Kweku Andoh Awotwi said this must be done in the next three to four years.

He disclosed that the country has a total installed capacity of 5,000 megawatts, of which he said only 4,000 are available.

The former Volta River Authority (VRA) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) made this known on the second edition of the Joy Change-Speakers Series on Saturday, May 21.

According to him, the country uses 150 to 200 megawatts yearly and for that matter, a new generation capacity contract needs to be signed.

“Lately, many people have been complaining that there is dumsor; even though really, there isn’t any dumsor in the transmission and distribution space. Then, of course the SEOs have also presented tariff increases of over 100% in certain cases but what I found this week was a headline that said the head of the IPPs is saying they are owed close a billion-dollar.”

“So you ask yourself; things are okay, Ghana has an installed capacity of over 5,000 megawatts but if you look through the reports, only about 4,000 is available, and already, we are using somewhere between 150 and 200 megawatts a year in terms of using up that capacity that we have.

"What that means is that, in three to four years' time, we will be over 4,000 megawatts and if we don’t sign new capacity, we will get the dumsor that we are all so worried about," he warned.

The Institute for Energy Security (IES) has also made a similar call.

According to the IES, a careful study of the current generation capacity shows that demand for power will soon overtake supply, creating a shortfall.

“The existing generation capacity we have is less than 4,500 megawatts and going forward, demand will increase yet installed capacity as we see will be the same until it is upped with some form of urgency," the Executive Director of IES, Nana Amoasi VII said in a JoyNews interview.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Energy Minister, Andrew Egyapa Mercer, has dismissed suggestions the country may be returning to the days of erratic power supply anytime soon.

The Deputy Energy Minister explained that the government has engaged Independent Power Producers (IPPs) for additional power capacity to be added to the current power generation efforts.

“I do not foresee that we are going to have dumsor anytime soon. I do not foresee that the conversations that are actually ongoing today will lead to dumsor anytime within the foreseeable future.

"As I indicated, the Energy Commission has a demand forecast system that projects additional power generation that the government from time to time ought to add to the generation mix,” he also said in a JoyNews interview.