At a conference Monday, Ghana’s deputy energy minister reiterated his government’s plans to pursue commercial nuclear power as a way to meet surging demand for electricity in West Africa.
Alhaji Inusah Fuseini was speaking in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, at the Cooperation and Networking for Nuclear Power Programme in Africa conference, organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency, an African regional organization and the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission. The event was created to bring a number of countries to the table to improve collaboration on electrical infrastructure and nuclear expertise.
The Africa Report quoted Fuseini as saying Ghana’s long-term energy demands are expected to exceed planned power generation because of increased commercial and industrial activity. As part of its response, he said Ghana is in the process of setting up organizations to coordinate the planning of nuclear power projects.
In the more immediate term, the country is also considering a range of currently available energy sources like gas and hydro to more than double the country’s power generation by 2015.
According to the World Nuclear Association, Ghana produced more than two thirds of its electricity from hydro power in 2006. It joined the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership in 2007, and the next year the government announced a goal of 400 megawatts of nuclear generation by 2018.