Wind-Powered electricity for Ghana

Ghana will from next February benefit from a wind generated electricity project, the first of its kind in the sub-region. The wind farm will generate about 50 megawatts of electricity to supplement the ailing national grid.

These were disclosed by the Minister of Energy, Mr Albert Kan Dapaah, at a forum on electricity tariffs hosted by the Tertiary Education Students confederation of the NPP (TESCON), Legon branch. He was responding to a suggestion for consideration for alternatives to Ghana's traditional electricity generation.

The government, he said, had done intensive studies into the use of biogas, a natural form of energy obtained from organic waste. He regretted that results from the study had been discouraging because of the socio-cultural inclination of the people, adding that, it was unfit for instance to use a product form human waste to cook though it was relatively cheaper to produce.

The Minister stated that solar energy had been considered as an alternative but was on the hold now because it was very expensive. He said it costs not less than $10,000 for a household to be run on solar energy for 25 years, making it relatively expensive. He mentioned other problems facing solar energy production as low illumination of bulbs as in the street light pilot project in Legon, noting that it could not, as of now, be produced on a large scale.

Mr Kan-Dapaah indicated that the government had adopted a wait-and-see method that could turn to the production of solar energy when it was viable. Speaking at a similar forum organised by the School of Engineering of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, the Energy Minister said that the government was to construct a number of the new transmission lines to help eliminate bottlenecks in power transmission resulting in supply shortfalls.

The forum was to assess the present status and future plans and programmes of the energy sector. The new transmission line to be built under $50 million project, he said, would include those of Prestea-Obuasi, Aboadze-Tema and Kumasi-Sunyani. Mr Kan-Dapaah observed that the current power crisis could be attributed to inadequate infrastructure investment and lack of proper maintenance.

He said that to save the situation, the sector would embark on public-private partnership for recapitalising investments as well as ensuring the implementation of cost-recovery measure through efficient policy of energy services. He reiterated that private sector participation would be handled with all circumspection in order not to jeopardise the well being of consumers. He disclosed that the country would require about $2 billion in the next three to five years to meet the investment requirement of the energy sector.