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DAM-L wind power for ghana <fwd>
GHANA
Wind of change may ease power shortages
Sub-Saharan Africa's first wind farm could be built in
Ghana if talks between Swiss firm NEK Umwelttechnik
and the government on a power purchase agreement
(PPA) are successful. NEK is proposing a 50MW-60MW
wind farm at a site east of Tema.
NEK's Christoph Kapp told African Energy that his
company had already received commitments from a
consortium of banks and power companies for the
$80m-100m project cost, and hoped to persuade
Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to take a small
stake. NEK is seeking a price of $0.07-0.08/kWh,
compared to $0.04-0.05/kWh for power from the
Akosombo dam complex.
Ghana's only power sources are Akosombo on Volta
Lake, the Takoradi thermal plant built by CMS Energy,
imports from neighbouring C?te d'Ivoire, and some
emergency thermal generation.
Once the PPA is in place, the wind farm will take just
six months to build, and Kapp said he hoped to conclude
talks this autumn and start construction in 2002.
A Ghanaian academic study in the early 1990s
concluded that Ghana did not have a suitable location
for a wind farm, but Kapp said the conditions were quite
good enough for a farm of this size. NEK has measured
wind speeds of 7.1 metres/second to 7.2ms at a hub
height of 68 metres. Kapp said he expected to use
windmills from Denmark's Bonus Energy.
NEK is also seeking opportunities in Tanzania, and
had been in talks with the Ivoirian authorities before the
present instability that began with the December 1999
military coup.
Activists oppose big new hydropower schemes
The government is under pressure from activist groups
not to build major new hydropower infrastructure as it
tries to tackle Ghana's electricity shortfalls.
The local Energy Foundation (EF) on 25 April
proposed that the government should consider building
micro-hydro projects along smaller rivers instead of
investing in the planned 400MW Bui dam in the west of
the country.
EF is arguing that were Bui to be built, the Bole game
reserve would be flooded and considerable sums would
have to be spent for compensation and resettlement.
According to EF communication and marketing
director Ernest Asare, although hydropower is
traditionally seen as a cheaper source of energy, "it is
getting increasingly difficult to get funding for new dam
construction, because a whole slew of organisations are
opposing such projects."
Speaking at a seminar in Accra, reported by the Pan
African News Agency (Pana), Asare added: "The cost of
the dam will have to be sourced from outside, adding to
the country's already heavy debt burden, while its
sustainability is affected by the reliance on unpredictable
rainfall patterns."
Asare cited the Likpe-Kukurantumi pilot project in
the Volta Region as a success among micro dam projects.
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