Ghana will select by December a company to build its first nuclear power plant from contenders including France’s EDF, US-based NuScale Power and Regnum Technology Group, and China National Nuclear Corporation, an energy ministry official said.
South Korea’s Kepco and its subsidiary Korea Hydro Nuclear
Power Corporation as well as Russia’s Rosatom were also competing for the
contract expected to span the next decade, said Robert Sogbadji, deputy
director for power in charge of nuclear and alternative energy.
“Cabinet will approve the final choice. It can be one vendor
or two nations; it will depend on the financial model and the technical
details,” Sogbadji told Reuters yesterday.
Ghana started considering building a nuclear power plant in
the 1960s but the process was derailed by a coup. It revived the plan in 2006
with the International Atomic Energy Association’s assistance, following a
devastating power crisis that year.
Sogbadji said 16 countries and companies had responded to
the government’s request for vendors, but a technical team of state agencies
led by the energy ministry narrowed it down to the current five nations.
Ghana, like other African countries, is increasingly looking
to the possibility of nuclear power to close supply gaps in a continent where
over 600 million people lack access to electricity.
Burkina Faso and Uganda have both signed agreements with
Russia and China to construct their first nuclear power plants. Kenya, Morocco
and Namibia are also working to add nuclear to their energy mix.
South Africa, which operates the continent’s only nuclear
plant, is looking to add 2,500 megawatts (MW) of power from the resource amid
severe power shortages.
Sogbadji said Ghana aims to add about 1,000 megawatt of
power from nuclear to its electricity mix by 2034.
The West African country, which is currently grappling with
power outages, has 5,454 MW of installed capacity, of which 4,483 MW is
available, according to its energy regulator.
Ghana — an oil, cocoa and gold exporting nation — expects
nuclear power to become its base load for quicker and broader industrialisation
while increasing energy exports to Benin, Ivory Coast and Togo, among others,
through the West Africa Power Pool.
Sogbadji said the government has already secured a site with
capacity to accommodate up to five reactors. He added that it would prefer a
“build, own, operate and transfer” arrangement with room for local equity
holding. — Reuters