Dr. George Tettey, Deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Bui Power Authority
Dr. George Tettey, Deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Bui Power Authority (BPA), has reaffirmed the Authority’s commitment to supporting Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education.
He said the support for STEM was part of the government’s efforts to meet its target of 10 percent of renewable energy sources by 2030.
He said Parliament amended the BPA Act in 2020, which had empowered the Authority to develop renewable energy and other clean energy alternatives that were reliable, affordable, and efficient to aid the national industrialization drive.
Dr. Tettey was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of the maiden edition of the “Central Regional Renewable Energy Challenge” for Senior High schools.
He said with ambitious reforms in the country’s education sector, the Authority planned to harness the potential of all young people through STEM to create individual opportunities to strengthen the country’s economy.
It is only a well-educated population that can confidently address national and global challenges, he said, adding that the deployment of renewable energy to meet the growing energy demands of future generations was an excellent approach to help mitigate climate change effects.
He said even though some modest efforts to deploy renewable energy technologies were made, the bulk of the ideas to increase the share of renewable energy in the country were hidden in the youth, hence the need to “catch them young”.
Reflecting on the Authority’s mandate, he said the amendment had strengthened efforts the Authority was making in the renewable energy space, including the completion of the first 50MW of the 250MW Hydro-Solar Hybrid project.
The hybridization, according to him, had aided the regulation of the Bui reservoir by retaining more water in the reservoir for four year-round power generation at the Bui Generating Station.
That was achieved by constructing 9MW of the project and 1MW of the floating solar project with a developer undertaking the 40MW on the Bui reservoir.
The intervention, he said, was the first of its kind in the West African sub-region, adding that engineers were currently conducting various tests on the 1MW system that was added to the National Grid.
Additionally, the Authority planned to increase the capacity of the floating solar system to 5MW by end of 2021 and also designed and constructed the 45Kw Tsatsadu Generating Station (TGS) at Alavanyo in the Volta Region in collaboration with the Ministry of Energy, Energy Commission, United Nations Development Programme, and the International Network on Small Hydro Power of China.
The Deputy CEO said experience from the construction of the Bui Hydroelectric Project was instrumental in the design and implementation of the first micro-hydro plant in Ghana by the young Engineers of BPA with local expertise.
“This project also serves as a practical tutorial plant for engineering students across the country and the West African sub-region,” he added.
Dr. Tettey said the BPA’s main target for 2021 was to consolidate the strides made in 2020, which culminated in the receipt of different awards during the Ghana Energy Awards.
The company won the ‘Clean Energy Initiative of the Year’ and the ‘Energy Company of the Year (Renewable)’ for the second year running with its CEO Mr Fred Oware adjudged the Energy Personality of the Year (2020).