By: Albert Kuzor| Voltaonlinegh.com |
The Minister for Energy, John Peter Amewu on Friday paid a working visit to Tsatsadu micro hydro power station at Alavanyo Abehenease in the Hohoe muncipality.
The 45 Kilowatts (KW) Hydropower generation station which was constructed on the Tsatsadu river by the Bui Power Authority (BPA), is expected to augment electricity supply in the Alavanyo area.
Accompanied by the Chief Executive Officer of BPA, Mr. Fred Oware and the director of Renewable energy at ministry, Mr. Wisdom Ahiataku-Togobo, the minister inspected generation station which is currently undergoing testing, ahead of commissioning by President Akufo-Addo in October.
The 400,000 dollar project, according to officials, has the turbine, generator and capacity building funded by UNIDO/UNDP through the China-Ghana South-South Co-operation on Renewable Energy Technology Transfer Project.
The Design Manager of the project,  Alex Okae-Acheampong briefing the minister and team diclose that, there was an arrangement for additional turbines to add on 60KW more of Generation to the current 45kW.
He explained that, due to the effect of climate change, the plant would only generate power within seven to eight months in a year, and “the rest of the months will be use for maintenance works basically.”
The Minister on his part said, the development of the Tsatsadu Hydro Generation station was part of government’s overall renewable energy agenda geared towards the provision of sufficient power to drive socio-economic development.
He hinted of the ministry’s plan to replicate the micro Hydropower project across the various water bodies in the country to take pressure off the national grid.
” Our water bodies cannot only attract tourism, but also have potentials in Renewable Energy, which we would want to develop accross the country,” he stated, adding that, “even when Akosombo [generation station] is off, at least we can have some power supply in Alavanyo-Abehenease. So what we are trying to do is that the street lights in the community will be directly powered with electricity from here.”
Mr. Amewu who was excited about the use of indigenous Ghanaians engineers for the project, said the facility would also serve as a Research centre for institutions of higher learning within the West African subregion.
” The unique aspect of it is that the people who have come out with the innovations are people who reside here, they are all engineers, so universities like KNUST and all other Universities can come here and study how a mini hydro project can be developed.”
Togbe Komla Kunde V, Chief of Alavanyo Abehenease, commended the government for project, which he said should be the beginning of more investments into the area.
Source: www.voltaonlinegh.com
