- Financing to support development of largest power park in sub-Saharan Africa
- Project to boost Ghana's power generation capacity by 50%
As part of efforts to address the shortfall in Ghana's public power supply, GE (NYSE: GE) announced today that it has partnered with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) to provide $500 million in financing to support development of the Ghana 1000 project in western Ghana. The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is an innovative and independent U.S. foreign aid agency that is championing a global campaign against poverty. The announcement was made ahead of President Obama's U.S.-Africa Leaders' Summit, where GE is hosting African and global government officials, policy experts, NGOs, entrepreneurs and business leaders for a conference on investment, infrastructure, and innovation in Africa.
The Ghana 1000 project is a joint-venture power project initiated by GE in partnership with Endeavor Energy and Finagestion. Once completed, it will be the largest power park in sub-Saharan Africa, providing 1000MW to Ghana's national grid. The five-year project will boost Ghana's power generation capacity by 50% from the current 2000MW installed capacity.
"Gas-to-power initiatives provide one of the greatest opportunities for sub-Saharan Africans to lift themselves out of energy poverty. Through this initiative, the cost of power generation in Ghana will be reduced by at least 35 percent," said Leslie Nelson, GE's Managing Director, Western Africa. "GE is extremely proud to partner with The Millennium Challenge Corporation to support Ghana's goal of energy self-sufficiency".
Leslie Nelson said this would be the first LNG-to-power project completed in an emerging market and is important to Ghana because it will both add reliable, base load generation as well as help to lower the cost of power in the country when compared to plants currently running off expensive light crude oil. "Recent reports indicate that Ghana currently spends more than $1 million daily to purchase light crude oil for power generation, so the impact of this project on the country's economy cannot be understated," he concluded.
To rapidly respond to existing power shortages, the Ghana 1000 project will come on line incrementally, with the first phase to add 360MW by September 2016, which will grow to 540MW by 2018 and the full quota of 1000MW in 2019. The plant will use LNG-to-power technology that will consist of 6 GE Frame 9E gas turbine generators in combined cycle. This tri-fuel gas turbine is capable of burning Natural Gas, HFO (Heavy Fuel Oil), or LCO (Light Crude Oil) that provides additional operational flexibility, should it be needed.
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For more information, contact:
Patricia Obozuwa
Director of Communications Sub Saharan Africa
+234 1 460 7100
Kate Guerin,
Edelman Africa
+27 (0)11 504 4000
