Consumption of electricity by industries improved by 49.0 per cent on a year-on-year basis as of May 2021.

According to real sector development report released by the Bank of Ghana (BoG), industries consumed 266.25 gigawatts of power in May 2021, as against 178.64 gigawatts recorded for the corresponding period in 2020.

Comparatively, from the start of the year, industry’s power consumption saw an increase of 241.24 gigawatts of power, indicating a 10.4 percent increase in May 2021. Albeit, electricity consumed by industries in the beginning of the year decreased compared with that of December 2020 (3.2 percent from 249.09 gigawatts utilised).

In cumulative terms, electricity consumption by industries for the first five months of 2021 increased by 14.0 percent to 1,276.70 gigawatts from 1,119.93 gigawatts for the corresponding period a year ago.

Considerably, the improvement in power consumption over the first five months of the year is due to increased industrial activity by manufacturing companies during the review period.

According to recent data by the Energy Commission, industry’s consumption of electricity increased from 13,185 gigawatts per hour (GWh) to 13,943 GWh between 2018 and 2019 respectively. This indicates an increase in total electricity consumption by 758GWh.

Electricity Consumption among sectors of the economy

Also, comparing final electricity consumption among different categories or sectors of consumers in the economy, residential consumption of electricity is the largest, consuming 542.5 Ktoe in 2018 and 546.7 Ktoe in 2019.

Furthermore, industry final electricity consumed also increased from 322.4 Ktoe in 2018 to 364.8 Ktoe in 2019. This is followed by commerce and services sector with final electricity consumption increasing from 266.9 Ktoe in 2018 to 285.3 Ktoe in 2019.

While Agriculture & Fisheries and Transport sectors recorded the least final electricity consumption at 1.2 Ktoe and 1.0 Ktoe respectively in 2018, the same was recorded- 1.3 Ktoe in 2018 and 1.2 Ktoe in 2019.

Considering the foregoing, it is evident that the increased industrial activity by manufacturing companies during the review period also reflects the pattern of ongoing rebound in economic activity.

To illustrate, the Bank of Ghana’s updated Composite Index of Economic Activity (CIEA) registered a strong annual growth of 33.1 percent in May 2021, compared to a contraction of 10.2 percent recorded in the corresponding period of 2020.

Moreover, business confidence surveys conducted in June 2021 reflected a slight dip during the period. The Business Confidence Index only dipped marginally from 96.9 in April to 96.3 in June 2021, indicating only 0.6 difference.

According to BoG’s real sector development report, business sentiments remained broadly unchanged due to expectations of improvement in company growth prospects.

In addition, the Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) since the beginning of the year has demonstrated vast improvements, increasing throughout the first six months on average. Although the index dipped slightly in July 2021 on the back of rising price levels.