Energy & Utilities

The Ghanaian energy sector has undergone transformative changes in recent decades. When Ghana made its first discovery of deepwater oil and gas in 2007, biomass was the largest component in total energy consumption. The subsequent exploitation of this new hydrocarbons resource, combined with a national drive towards electrification, saw a significant reduction in the importance of biomass as an energy input. Ghana has one of the highest electrification rates in sub-Saharan Africa. A recent drive to develop electricity infrastructure has brought the period of unstable supply and raised installed generation capacity to an end. However, this development brought its own challenges: oversupply in the system resulted in the government paying for power it did not utilise, leading to contract renegotiations with private sector power producers that threaten to undermine investor confidence. This chapter also contains interviews with John Peter Amewu, Minister of Energy; and Kevin Okyere, CEO, Springfield Group.