Samuel Kofi Dzamesi, CEO of Bui Power Authority (BPA), talks to The Energy Year about the company’s various power generation projects and the attractiveness of green energy production. BPA has been charged by the government with developing renewables projects to meet a target of 10% renewable energy in Ghana’s energy mix by 2030.
How is the authority planning to expand its projects beyond the Black Volta?
Bui Power Authority will build, own and operate new renewable power plants; we will produce and sell power. We are targeting no more than 250 MW at the Bui enclave because the transmission network will not be able to sustain a system shutdown from the solar plants when the intermittencies kick in above the intended 250-MW solar plant for the hybridisation. Studies have confirmed this assumption. However, we are not limited to this site. We want to grow our capacity to 1 GW.
We are acquiring land in all the areas where there is a GRIDCo substation to install between 50 and 100 MW produced by solar energy and offload it onto the grid, especially in the Northern Region, where the sunshine is of better quality. We will also construct small hydro plants of around 50 MW on rivers in the Western Region. All of the country’s big rivers have already been dammed, but we have smaller rivers that can also be dammed, such as the Pra, Ankobra and Tano.
Ghana has experience in small projects, such as the 45-kW Tsatsadu mini-hydropower plant. We intend in early 2022 to go to Vli Falls and install 4 MW of hydropower there. In 2022, we will do one or two hydro plants in Ghana.
What is BPA’s strategy to overcome the power sector’s circular debt issue?
We’ve been enabled to look for other companies to whom we can sell directly, like industrial factories and mines. At the moment, we sell about 10 MW to a gold mine in Bolgatanga, and in 2022 this will increase to about 60 MW. We can do this through a collaboration with GRIDCo.
We established a business unit to develop our commercial sales department. Even people from Sierra Leone are interested. Thanks to the West African Power Pool, we can sell power to multiple West African countries.
Our largest offtaker is ECG [Electricity Company of Ghana], with which we have monetary issues. On the retail end there are many losses. Many people are using electricity and not paying, and ECG is not capable of collecting these debts. This should be solved by smaller companies dealing with smaller areas, collecting payments house by house with a bulk meter and paying back ECG at a profit.
Which types of contracts is the company offering to contractors?
We invite companies who are ready to do EPC plus finance. This is how we developed the solar installations at the Bui Enclave with a company called Meinergy. We are receiving a lot of inquiries and interest from foreign companies. The challenge is that most contractors intend to work through loan facilities but we don’t prefer to work with loans. We sell power and we have the market to sell. If they build it for us, we can pay them per an arrangement.
As Bui Power Authority is new in this arena, we are asking contractors to operate and maintain assets using our engineers. On our site we have workers from Meinergy and Bui Power Authority currently working together. Hopefully by 2024 we will be able to operate the facilities ourselves. By that time, we will have studied management and operations thoroughly.
What advantage do hydro and solar power present over fossil-fuel-based electricity in Ghana?
Electricity sales from hydro and solar power plants are cheaper as compared to the fossil-fuel based electricity. The cost per kWh from hydro and solar plants falls within 8-11 US cents. It should be in the interest of the government and the industry to produce as much hydro and solar power as possible. We can reduce thermal production. Who knows whether oil and gas will flow for years to come, but the rivers will continue to flow, and the sun will continue to shine.
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