Bui Power Authority puts up 5MW floating solar on dam’s reservoir

The Bui Power Authority (BPA) has begun the construction of a four-megawatt (4MW) floating solar panel system to augment power generation at the Bui Generating Station in the Banda District of the Bono Region.

Samuel Kofi Dzamesi, the chief executive officer of the BPA, said the facility will augment the 1MW floating solar already constructed on the Bui Dam reservoir, which covers 444 square kilometres.

The Authority has also installed a 10MW battery system, “which is like a UPS, so that any time the two powers want to meet, it will smoothen the power before it goes on to the national grid”, he said.

“Now we have to understand that the solar is in hybridisation with the hydro plant and the battery system will help in the smooth hybridisation, that is putting the solar and the hydro on to the national grids so that the two do not meet at the same time,” Dzamesi said.

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The BPA chief executive was speaking in an interview with news reporters after he conducted Justina Owusu-Banahene, the Bono Regional Minister, around the dam’s plant site in Bui.

The regional minister was accompanied by members of the Bono Regional Security Council as well as district and municipal chief executives to the dam site to acquaint herself with hydropower generation and other operations of the Authority.

Dzamesi said the work on the facility is expected to be complete by the end of April 2023, and it will be hooked up to the grid to enhance power supply nationwide.

He also said that the Authority has succeeded in building and commissioning 50MW out of the targeted 250MW of solar farm in the dam enclave and that construction work on an additional 100MW is ongoing.

“Out of the 100MW, we expect to finish 40MW this year, and then complete the other 60MW next year. We have also given 50MW to another contractor, though work on the project has been delayed from his side.

“We want to move outside the Bui enclave, and we have acquired lands very close to the at GRIDCo substations at Yendi, Tamale, Buipe, Bolgatanga and Sawla, so that any time we want to put [up] on-land solar it would be very easy to hook on to the national grid,” Dzamesi said.

He said the Authority had signed an agreement with First Sky Company Ltd to begin the construction soon on another 50MW facility in Yendi, and commended President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for his support for the BPA.

Owusu-Banahene praised the BPA for the innovation, saying the Authority ought to be commended for providing zero-emission energy and protecting the environment.

She also commended the Authority’s board, management and staff and encouraged them to do more to eliminate the need for power rationing in Ghana.

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