The Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) is urging government to adopt a coordinated, system-wide approach to reform Ghana’s power sector, warning that fragmented planning continues to drive inefficiencies and increase the cost of electricity for both businesses and households.

Speaking during a panel discussion at the 2025 Ghana Economic Forum in Accra,Executive Director of ACEP, Benjamin Boakye said Ghana’s energy crisis stems from a lack of synchronisation across the value chain where fuel supply, power generation, transmission, and distribution are often planned in isolation rather than as a single, integrated system.

“And the power sector is a system. And the way to deal with it is to plan with systemic mindset. So you don’t leave any part untouched. You have to plan for fuel, you have to plan for generation, you have to plan for transmission, have to plan for distribution. All of them must work concurrently and effectively, that efficiency mindset to make sure that when we are procuring generation, the transmission system is right to be able to deliver the power.”

Benjamin Boakye noted that unbalanced investment decisions have worsened inefficiencies, forcing the state to pay for generation capacity that cannot be distributed.

“If you have generation and you cannot distribute, that is even worse than not even having generation, because you are paying for the generation and you are not also distributing, but the company is also taking money.”

He described the situation as an “excess capacity paradox,” where citizens endure blackouts while government pays millions for idle power plants. He cited poor planning around Independent Power Producers (IPPs) as a major cost driver.

“For example, we asked some of the IPPs, we talk about power cost being too expensive, but we told the IPPs, some of them, to build fuel tanks, build gas consumption infrastructure to tie it to one power plant. All of them come at a cost.”

Mr. Boakye warned that unless cost structures are aligned with people’s ability to pay, non-payment and power theft will persist, undermining sector sustainability.

“If we don’t reduce the cost of power and contextually appreciate that people have limitations on how much they can pay for the power, it creates problem also downstream, because if people can’t pay, they steal the power.”

He emphasised that a critical, integrated plan covering generation, transmission, and distribution is essential to improve efficiency, cut waste, and make the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) more financially viable.