President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has intimated that, the 45kW Tsatsadu Generation Station at Alavanyo-Abehenease in the Hohoe Municipality of the Volta Region, is a demonstration of the commitment of his administration to develop the country’s energy resources.
Highlighting on his government’s commitment while speaking at the commissioning of the project, he revealed that, his government took the project up after it had been on the drawing board for over two decades with successive governments paying ‘lip service’ to it, as well as developing other small and mini-hydro sites across the country.
“When we had the opportunity to come to power and Kuffour appointed Prof. Aaron Mike Ocquaye as Minister for Energy, studies were done and about twenty-two sites were identified for the development. Unfortunately, before we could operationalise these, we lost the election of 2008. Many important initiatives by the Kuffour government were abandoned by the Mills-Mahama government.”
He further added that, the project was materialized upon his assumption of office in 2017, when he gave a direction to the Ministry of Energy, together with the Bui Power Authority, to re-develop the hydro power generating stations, including that at Tsatsadu.
He then commended and praised the Bui Power Authority and Ministry of Energy for working to ensure the realisation of the Tsatsadu Micro-hydro Power Project under his tenure.
According to President Akufo-Addo, it is his wish and desire that the skills on mini-hydro power plant development is transferred to develop the other potential mini-hydro potential sites in the region and beyond and declared the centre a place for training.
“I, therefore, declare to make the Alavanyo Tsatsadu Generation Plant a Centre of Excellence under Bui Power Authority for training young engineers in the development of mini-hydro plants across the country.”
Touching on the passage of the Bui Power Authority (Amendment) Act 2020, he stated that, the BPA is now mandated to expand the scope beyond the Black Volta and mandate to promote and facilitate the development of renewable and other clean energy options nationwide adding that, the Amended Act also gives the Authority the legal mandate to execute and manage renewable energy and clean energy programmes on behalf of the state or that in which the state has an interest.
The Chief Executive Officer of Bui Power, Fred Oware thanked the President for the confidence reposed in him, and assured him that, with the amendment of the BPA Act which has mandated them to develop other renewable projects on behalf of the state, the Authority would work hard to ensure that other sites identified for small and micro hydro projects are actualised.
The 45kW Tsatsadu Micro-hydro Generation Station was initially designed as a 30kW stand-alone system, but was redesigned and upgraded to a 45kW grid-connection system based on the outcome of the additional studies
The project was constructed by local young engineers of the Bui Power Authority and funed through Bui Power Authority’s (BPA), internally generated fund of US$400,000 with support from the Danish and Chinese governments through the Renewable Energy Technology Transfer (UNDP-RETT) Project.
