In 1997, the Government of Ghana accepted World Bank/IMF recommendations for the Ghanaian power Sector to restructure the standard model. The vertically integrated Volta River Authority (VRA) would be unbundled into a separate transmission and system operations company (Ghana Grid Company – GRIDCo), VRA would retain generation and the national distributor of electricity, The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) would be horizontally unbundled in the readiness for privatization. Also, independent power producers (IPPs) would be allowed to enter the market.

The need to reform has been brought about by a debilitating electricity crisis that started in the early 1980s and spanned over two decades. It was caused primarily by lack of rainfall, a major issue for the power sector that relied exclusively on hydropower- essentially a power system planning failure. A poorly performing distribution sector and a general lack of investment were additional factors driving the reform.

Two industry regulators, the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) And The Energy Commission (EC) were subsequently formed and charged with undertaking economic and technical regulation, respectively. Soon thereafter, the country’s first IPP entered into service in 2000. Beyond this, reform proceeded slowly and it was only in 2008 that the VRA was unbundled.

Although rainfall has generally been sufficient since 2007, the threat of drought is always present. Faced with this and ever increasing demand for electricity, brought about an economic turnaround, the Government of Ghana has pronounced their intent to bring into service an additional 5,000MW of mainly IPP generation by 2015. For a system with an installed capacity in 2010 of approximately 2,000MW this is clearly an ambitious target. But given the discovery of oil in the Jubilee fields off the Ghanaian coast and the emergence Chinese Investors, this goal may yet be achieved.

Green Electric Power Corp was incorporated in 2004 with its focus primarily on Hydrogen Fuel Enhancement Technology. In 2006 GEPC incorporated Alberta Gas Research Inc (AGRI) to deploy combustion control systems to the oil and gas industry for the purpose of flare gas utilization for electricity production.

Green Electric Power Ghana, a division of GEPC, is specifically driven to construct, operate and maintain, large scale solar PV projects within Ghana. GEPC continues to run a manufacturing and R&D Facility in Bradford, Canada, focused on Hydrogen Combustion Technologies. The combined strength of GEPC, Guycan Solar and their international partners and affiliates translates to multiple layers of top tier support and expertise. Our management team offers decades of successful project development.