On April 26, 1961, the Volta River Authority (VRA) was established with the mandate to generate, transmit and distribute electricity under the Volta River Development Act, Act 46 of the Republic of Ghana.
In 2005, following the promulgation of a major amendment to the VRA Act in the context of the Ghana Government Power Sector Reforms, the VRA’s mandate has now been largely restricted to generation of electricity. This amendment has created an enabling environment to attract Independent Power Producers (IPPs) into the Ghana Energy market.
Following the amendment, the transmission function has been hived off into an entity, designated Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) while VRA’s distribution agency, the Northern Electricity Department (NED), established in April 1987, has been transformed into the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo), a stand-alone, wholly-owned, subsidiary of VRA
Power Activities
The Authority solely operates a total installed electricity generation capacity of 2,520 MW, from the Akosombo and Kpong Generation Stations both located on the Volta River with 1,020MW and 160MW respectively; with a complement of 2.5MW Solar PV Plant located at Navrongo.
The VRA also owns a number of thermal plants located in Western Operational Area (WOA) in Aboadze near Takoradi, and Eastern Operational Area (EOA) within the Tema enclave. These thermal facilities operate on a combined cycle and include, the 330MW Takoradi Thermal 1 (T1) Power Plant, 340MW Takoradi Thermal 2 (T2) Power Plant, which is a Joint Venture (JV) between VRA and TAQA from Abu Dhabi, a 110MW Tema Thermal 1 Power Plant (TT1PP), an 87MW Tema Thermal 2 Power Plant (TT2PP), a 250MW Ameri Power Plant and a 220MW Kpone Thermal Power Station (KTPS).
The Authority maintains an apt maintenance and retrofit culture in its operations. Retrofit works on the Kpong Generating Station began in October, 2014 on Unit 2 with two (2) signed Contracts (KP-1 and KP-C1) with Andritz Hydro, Austria and Hatch Energy, Canada respectively in 2013 and funding provided by French Development Agency (AFD), France. AFD provided a total of 42.75 million Euros to fund both KP-1 and KP-C1 Contracts with a Credit Facility Agreement (CFA) contingency of 3.5 million Euros.
The overall objective of the project is to upgrade and replace the necessary systems/components in order to ensure a further thirty (30) years of safe, reliable and efficient operation of the generating units and power plant equipment. Works on Units 1, 2 and 3 have been successfully completed and that of Unit 4 are expected to be completed in April 2020.
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