Power Stations

Ghana has three types of power station - hydroelectric, solar and thermal - giving a total capacity of 5.1 GW as at 2022, with an approximately equal split between fossil and renewable energy sources. Given below are important installations in each of these areas.

Images with external copyright are inline-linked and not held on GPN.

Technical Abbreviations
DFO - distillate fuel oil; LCO - light crude oil; NG - natural gas; PV - photovoltaic ha - hectare; kV - kilovolt; MW - megawatt

Akosombo Hydroelectric Power Station

The Akosombo Dam was built between 1961 & 1965 across the River Volta, creating the Volta Lake, the largest artificial reservoir in the world. The dam is 660 m long and 114 m high, comprising a high rockfill embankment dam which was designed to be earthquake-resistant. The electrical output was originally 912 MW but was upgraded in 2006 to 1,020 MW developed by six 170 MW Francis turbines, supplied with water by penstocks 112–116 m long and 7.2 m in diameter.

A contemporary report by T .E. Hilton summarised the history of the project:
"Bauxite, associated with early Tertiary erosion surfaces, was first discovered in Ghana in 1914; in the following year Mr. A. E. .. Kitson, Government Geologist, discoverer of the Birrim diamond field, recommended the Akosombo site for dam construction, to provide power to process the bauxite. ... Before and after World War II Mr. Duncan Rose, a South African engineer, had made private investigations. The 1951 Report by Sir William Halcrow and Partners covered also the wider implication of developing the entire Volta basin, confirmed the Government view that a deep-water port was needed in eastern Ghana ..., and recommended construction of a dam and power station at Ajena (3 miles north of Akosombo), and railways from Aya-Yenahin and Tema to a smelter at Kpong. ...The Volta River Authority was established in April 1961 to plan, execute and manage the development of the Project, ... The first dam workers arrived in July 1961."
Fifty years after the first proposal, the project was completed, and on 22 January 1966 the President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, officially inaugurated the Volta River Project.

Sources:
Wikipedia, Akosombo Dam
Volta River Authority, Akosombo Hydro Plant
T. E. Hilton, "Akosombo Dam and the Volta River Project", Geog. Assoc., Geography, Jul.1966, Vol.51, No.3

Akosombo Dam

Akosombo Power Station

Kpong Hydroelectric Power Station

Kpong Power Station was built between 1977 and 1982 some 25 km downstream of Akosombo to capitalise on the flow energy of the Volta River. The dam is 240 m long and 18 m high, and the four Francis turbines have a total output capacity of 148 MW.

Sources:
Wikipedia, Kpong Dam
Volta River Authority, Kpong Hydro Plant
Multiconsult, Akosombo & Kpong Dams

Kpong Power Station © Multiconsult

Bui Hydroelectric Power Station

The Bui Dam is built on the Black Volta river at the Bui Gorge, at the southern end of Bui National Park. Construction began in December 2009 and was completed in 2013. It has a length of 492.5 m and a height of 185 m. The output capacity is 404 MW produced by three 133.33 MW Francis turbines and a 4 MW turbinette.

Bui Power Station © Bui Power Authority

Like the Akosombo dam, the Bui dam was one of Albert Kitson's proposals. However the former project, being of greater economic significance, took precedence after independence. It was not until the political stability of the 1990s that the Bui proposal was revived, and even then questions of environmental and economic concern delayed committal to the work for about a decade.

Sources:
Wikipedia, Bui Dam
Bui Power Authority, Bui Generating Station

Bui Reservoir © Google Imagery 2023

Kaleo Solar Power Plant

The 13 MW Kaleo Power Plant is owned by the Volta River Authority, and Phase 1 was built between February 2020 and August 2022. Phase 2 will add a further 15 MW of output capacity and is expected to be completed in 2023. Power is exported by a 167 kV transmission line to a GRIDCo substation in Wa, about 15 km away, where the electricity is fed into the national grid.

Sources:
Wikipedia, Kaleo Solar Power Station
VRA, Commissioning of the Kaleo Solar Power Plant

Kaleo Solar Power Plant © VRA

Navrongo Solar Power Plant

The 2.5 MW Navrongo Solar Power Plant was the first grid-ready solar station in Ghana. It is owned by the Volta River Authority, and was built from 2012-13. It consists of 8,622 PV modules covering a land area of 4.77 ha.

Sources:
Wikipedia, Navrongo Solar Power Station
VRA, Navrongo Solar Power Plant
ECREE, Case Study: Navrongo Solar PV Project, Ghana

Navrongo Solar Power Plant © VRA

Onyaadze Solar Power Plants

The environs of the village of Onyaadze in Gomoa West District, Central Region, host two privately owned solar farms, both having an output capacity of 20 MW which is sold to Power Distribution Services Ghana (PDSG), formerly Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG). The electricity is conveyed via high voltage transmission lines connecting to the national grid at a substation in Winneba.

BXC Solar Power Station is owned and operated by Beijing Xiaocheng Company, a Chinese independent power producer and was commissioned in 2015. The installation has 40,480 PV modules. Gomoa Onyaadze Solar Power Station is owned by Meinergy Ghana Limited and was commissioned in 2018. It has 64,400 modules.

Sources:
Wikipedia, BXC Solar Power Station
Wikipedia, Gomoa Onyaadze Solar Power Station
PV Tech, BXC connects 20MW solar plant to Ghana’s national grid
Afrik21, Gomoa Onyaadze solar power plant now operational

Sunon Asogli Thermal Power Station

Sunon Asogli Power Station, is a 560 MW thermal power station owned by the Chinese company Sunon Asogli Power Ghana Limited. It was the first privately-owned electricity generation installation in the history of Ghana. It is located in Kpone, about 7 km northeast of Tema harbour. Completed in three phases from 2010 to 2018, it is a dual fuel combined cycle gas turbine plant which can operate on either NG or DFO.

Sources:
Wikipedia, Sunon Asogli Thermal Power Station
Power Plants around the World, CCGT Plants in Ghana
GE Gas Power, Combined Cycle Power Plant

Takoradi Thermal Power Station

The 330 MW Takoradi T2 Power Station is situated at Aboadze, a coastal town about 13 km northeast of Takoradi harbour. It first became operational in 1997 but was expanded to its present capacity in 2015. It has two tri-fuel combustion turbine generators and one steam turbine generator, each with a rated output of 110 MW. The primary fuel for the combustion generators is LCO supplied from an offshore source by a 4.5 km undersea pipeline, but they can also be fired by DFO (e.g. diesel) or NG.

Sources:
Wikipedia, Takoradi Thermal Power Station
VRA, Takoradi Thermal Power Station
TAQA Ghana, Powering a Thriving Future

Tema Thermal Power Complex

Situated in the Tema industrial area, the Tema Thermal Power Complex consists of several power stations commissioned at different times in the period 2008 to 2012. The Volta River Authority gives details of the plant at three stations:

Station 1 - MR46GS, which has three Pratt & Whitney gas turbines, one rated at 45 MW and the other two at 15 MW, all of which can be run on NG or DFO.
Station 2 - TP47G1, which has a single General Electric Frame 9E gas turbine rated at 126 MW, which can be run on NG, LCO or DFO.
Station 3 - ST50GS, which has six Siemens gas turbines, four rated at 7.9 MW and two at 12.9 MW, all running on NG or DFO.

The installation output capacity from the VRA data totals 258.4 MW, which is at variance with the 236 MW cited by Wikipedia. However, the latter source lists only Caterpillar diesel generators as the power sources, and their ratings are inconsistent with the claimed capacity.

Sources:
VRA, Tema Thermal Power Complex
Wikipedia, Tema Thermal Power Station
CENIT Energy, Our History
GTS Engineering Services, Our Projects