President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo ended his one-day duty tour of the Upper West Region with the commissioning of a €20.2 million 15 megawatt (MW) solar power project at Kaleo in the Nadowli-Kaleo District as the second phase.
Funded by the German Development Bank (KFW), the project is a collaboration between the government of Ghana and the Volta River Authority (VRA) which will supply power to 32,000 households in the region.
Together with the Lawra solar project commissioned by the President last year, the systems will provide a combined generating capacity of 22.8-megawatt peak and will complement the national grid in Wa to provide efficient and reliable power for the region.
This brings to three the number of solar power plant projects in the northern part of the country after an earlier one by the VRA in Navrongo in the Northern Region in 2013.
Diversification
In his address, President Akufo-Addo said the government was committed to diversifying the national energy portfolio with the introduction of renewable sources.
Diversification of renewable sources, he said, was to mitigate the effects of climate change by reducing carbon footprint with the increase in non-fossil fuel generation.
He noted that the government was also doing that to move the concentration of power generation since the hydro system was introduced in the 1960s and 70s, and the thermal in the 90s from the southern and middle belts of the country.
“Since 1961 when the country started commercial production of electricity, almost all the generation assets, except the Bui hydropower plant, have been located in the middle and southern parts of the country,” he said.
Investment
The President said the government had invested heavily in the electricity transmission network to enable the country to evacuate more renewable energy through the national grid to support the extension of electricity to all parts of the country.
He said for that reason, Kaleo had a dedicated transmission line that would evacuate power from the current and future solar capacity to the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) sub-station in Wa.
He said the government had taken it upon itself as part of the development trajectory to bring some of those sources closer to the north to open additional opportunities in all parts of the country.
The President was expectant that with the project in the community, “corporate social responsibility programs for Kaleo and its environs will be enhanced through the provision of social amenities by the appropriate authorities in many forms”.
He expressed the hope that the projects would stimulate socio-economic activities and bring about an improvement in the lives of the people.