MTU powers Ghana

MTU Onsite Energy has delivered 36 natural-gas-powered gensets for a gas power plant in Accra, Ghana, to aid the country’s shortage of electric power.

The Type 16V 4000 L32 gensets produce 1,560 kW of electric power and will feed 56 MW into the country’s public grid.

The VRA Tema Thermal Power Plant – where the gensets are located – will be operated by the VPower Group. The power plant is scheduled to go into operation from May 2016.

The high-speed gas engines will be serviced by MTU Asia in cooperation with MTU South Africa.

MTU said that Ghana suffers from a shortage of electric power and the Ghanaian Energy Commission aims to feed an extra 3,000 MW into the public grid by 2020.

Major oil and gas fields have been under development since 2007 and since that time these two fuels have been the primary sources of energy within the country.

Andrea Nono, CEO of MTU South Africa, said, “Our gas-powered engines are particularly well-suited for distributed power plants such as those in Ghana.

“They offer rapid solutions that can be implemented in a relatively short time and are thus capable of helping to stabilise public power supplies.”