Chinese Companies Have Played Major Roles in Ghana’s Energy Sector

A top official of the Bui Power Authority (BPA), located in the mid-west of Ghana, said here late Friday that Chinese tech giant Huawei and their fellow national companies working here have played an important role in the country’s energy generation.

Samuel Nimako Boateng, director at the Power Operations Department (POD) of the BPA, said this after some selected local and international journalists undertook a two-day tour to inspect work done by Huawei at the Bui Power Generation Station.

According to him, Chinese companies have over the years executed quality work for Ghana, enabling the West African country to meet its energy requirements.

His comments follow a partnership between Huawei and the Bui Power Authority for the former to provide cutting-edge technological solutions to ensure efficiency in power production and service delivery.

“The Chinese have been very instrumental as far as meeting our generation’s needs are concerned. This dam is purely Chinese; they built it, and so far, so good. We have run this for the past 10 years and there are no issues, so our confidence in Huawei and Chinese work has really increased tremendously,” said Boateng.

Owing to the growing demand for power and the danger the traditional way of generating electricity poses to the climate, the BPA, he emphasized, has taken it upon itself to produce clean energy, hence the decision to pursue solar power generation.

“The world needs to embrace renewable energy to limit our carbon footprints so that we can sustain air for all of us, and that is why BPA will ensure that whatever we do is renewable to sustain the earth. Solar power generation has enabled the country to meet its growing energy needs. Our energy needs grow between 8 and 10 percent per year, so if we don’t build power plants to take care of these additional needs, we will run into load shedding,” he added.

Sampson Amanyo Zickson, Solar Sector Manager for Huawei West Africa, explains why the Chinese company decided to partner with the Bui Power Authority to execute its solar power project.

“For Bui Power Authority, if they are going to do a solar farm, their focus will be on savings and equipment that has the highest quality and offers the lowest cost.

Huawei has been the number one global shipper of solar inverters and batteries since 2015, so globally, we are renowned and well known. Aside from the quality, we also offer the best prices on the market, so our marriage with Bui is like a match made in heaven because we give them the best quality project yet at the most affordable prices,” said Zickson.

The West Africa Solar Sector Manager explains the benefits the Ghanaian authorities stand to gain from Huawei’s technology.

“With the Huawei system, the inverters are available 99.9 percent of the time; they are very reliable and are almost always available, which means that power is constantly supplied to the national grid, which is a very good thing for the country.”

Kwaku Donkor of the Technology Department at Huawei also explains why the Chinese tech giant has deployed the eLTE solution for the Bui Power Authority.

“Bui is a very big facility, looking at the location of the power station and where the residences are, and it needs an efficient communication system so that people at each point will be able to speak to each other. So, by identifying this major pinpoint, we decided that we would introduce this solution to them so as to enhance their work,” said Donkor.

The BPA was established by An Act of Parliament, BPA Act 720, in 2007 with the mandate to generate hydroelectric power on the Black Volta River at Bui and for related matters.

Funded largely by China Exim Bank and by the Chinese government, the Bui dam was built and commissioned in 2013 as a Build-Operate-Transfer dam by Chinese dam-building firm Sinohydro at a cost of 622 million U.S. dollars.

Through the BPA (Amendment) Act 2020 (Act 1046), the mandate of the company was expanded to include the development of hydroelectric power sites on other rivers as well as the development of renewable energy and other clean energy solutions beyond its traditional enclave.

The company is currently generating a 404-megawatt hydroelectric plant from four generating units and a 250-megawatt solar project to form the first hydro-solar hybrid to be connected to the country’s national electricity grid, with an initial 50 megawatt completed and connected.

It also has a 5-megawatt floating solar PV system on the Bui reservoir that generates electricity for use in the country.