GRIDCO, the backbone to power delivery in Ghana, continues to make efforts aimed at enhancing the grid and ensuring that it is ready to receive and efficiently transport other sources of power such as renewable energy.
Opening a workshop on renewable power integration into the national grid, GRIDCO CEO Charles Darku reminded participants that although they have no problem integrating power from a gas-fired thermal plant or conventional hydro-plant, integrating renewable is a whole “new ball game”. It will be the first attempt to integrate off-grid generation into the national grid.
He urged participants drawn from GRIDCo and the other power utilities, the Energy commission, the PURC and the Ministry of Energy to cooperatively explore how renewable energy can be integrated into the grid to enhance its operation and the overall growth of the Ghana power system.
Ghana has set a target of 10 percent as the contribution of Renewable Energy to the generation-mix by 2020.? Parliament has recently passed the renewable energy law to provide the regulatory framework and fiscal incentives to attract private sector investment in the sector.
?All of this will however not achieve the desired objective unless the delivery backbone is ready. With the ever-increasing demand for power, the country’s economic managers are exploring other potentials for improving the current generating capacity.?
Solar and wind are renewable sources of energy that are abundant in Ghana and the VRA has already initiated steps to tap into renewable energy to complement the current generation-mix in Ghana.
The workshop was led by Nicholas Miller, a world-renowned expert on renewable energy who spent thirty years at General Electric.
