Ghana Commits to Increase Renewable Energy with Eight Solar Plants

The Ghanaian government reaffirmed its commitment to renewable energy and sustainable development goal seven (SDG7) with electric utility Bui Power Authority (BPA) plan of constructing eight solar power plants in the country.

According to BPA, the project is expected to start early in 2022, with designated sites including the towns of Yendi (Northern Region), Buipe and Sawla (Savannah Region), Zebilla and Bolgatanga (Upper East Region), and Tumu (Upper West).

These locations are within the proximity of the Ghana Grid Company’s (GRIDCo) substations in the northern part of the country, where the potential solar plants capacity is between 10MWp to 100MWp. This could successfully be connected with the National Interconnected Transmission System (NITS).

CEO of BPA Samuel Kofi Dzamesi, disclosed the plan while outlining the efforts to increase the country’s renewable power generation on the sidelines of COP26 in Glasgow, said “We’ve gone far with plans and it is even possible that by next year January-February, we should be having some people who will be coming in to start the plants. We are poised for this”.

The capacity of each plant will depend on the size and specifications of investors who have been engaged under an arrangement in which the investors would fund the construction and will be paid later for the state to own the plants. BPA has collaborated with some universities so that new graduates would be involved in various projects.

Dzamesi also brings up BPA’s commitment to the development of renewable energy in the West African country. He pointed out Ghana’s adherence to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change with the signing of the BPA Amendment Act 2020 (Act 1046) into law which empowers BPA to develop renewable and clean energy in Ghana. 

BPA is exploring renewable energy projects as a part of the Government of Ghana’s target of increasing renewable energy in the country’s energy mix by 10% by 2030 in order to achieve the sustainable development goals of the United Nations.

Currently, BPA’s energy projects include a 250MWp land-based solar, a combined capacity 404MW hydroelectric plant, 1MWp of a proposed 5MWp Floating solar, 45kW Tsatsadu Micro Hydro plant. BPA would be running 700MWp of solar by 2024 and its future prospects also include developing the western rivers of Ghana and increasing floating solar generation capacity.