GRIDCo on course to supply power to private entities

GRIDCo has announced that it is opening its doors to transact direct business with private bulk power producers ready to purchase electricity on a whole-sale basis.

The CEO of GRIDCo, Charles Darko, made this revelation during an interview with Bernard Nassara Saibu on Joy FM's Super Morning Show and cited a Chinese company, Sunon Asogli as a beneficiary of their innovation.

This, he said, is in line with GRIDco's vision to reform the electricity sector, inject private capital and ensure efficiency in service delivery.

He likened the situation to that of the media, where the monopoly of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) was broken, paving the way for the likes of Joy FM to begin operations and which eventually led to the hundreds of private broadcast stations in the country.

“We are trying to do something similar on the power side [comparing it with the reformation of media] by taking the transmission out of the VRA and opening up the VRA in the generation side to competition and bringing in additional private participation…so that at the end of the day, the efficiency and the delivery will go up,” he indicated.

The CEO highlighted plans of his outfit, indicating that it is working to bring in bulk consumers to competitively bid for exclusive power delivery from GRIDco and hinted that the move would eventually clear the way for privatization of power delivery in the country.

“We are working with what we call the whole-sale power market, which would be a market in which bulk consumers would come in and commit to buy the power from producers in a competitive manner,” he revealed.

Story by Fidel Amoah/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana