A team from The Energy Center, KNUST visited the Hydro-Electric Power Plants of the Volta River Authority (VRA) at Akuse and Akosombo in Ghana, to discuss technical cooperation in Renewable Energy Technologies, particularly Solar and Wind.

The team comprised Fellows of The Energy Center and Prof Brayima Dakyo of the Groupe de Recherche en Electrotechnique et Automatique du Havre (GREAH), Laboratory of the University of Le Havre in France. GREAH is a partner in the Renewable Energy Education Project, which is funded by the EDULINK programme of the European Union. 

The visit which took place from 29 – 31 August 2011, explored collaboration between the REEP partners and VRA in Renewable Energy projects development and research.

Welcoming the team from KNUST and GREAH, Mr William Sam-Appiah, Director of Engineering Services of VRA was happy about the visit and hoped that more concrete ways would be found to work together with KNUST, particularly in renewable energy, which is a new area for VRA. 

In a presentation to the Engineering and other Technical staff on 30 August 2011, Mr. David Quansah, coordinator of the Solar Capacity Upgrading Project (SolarCUP, which is funded by the World Bank) gave an overview of ongoing solar energy training and research activities at The Energy Center, and also mentioned impending installations and studies under the SolarCUP project.

Prof. Brayima Dakyo followed with a presentation on the integration of Solar PV and Wind Energy into the electricity grid, with the need for system stability in mind.

The VRA is Ghana’s state power generation utility with over 1.18 GW of installed hydro capacity, and also operates some thermal power plants.  

The team was led by Dr. David Anipa who is coordinator of the EDULINK-REEP project at College of Engineering of KNUST. 

Click here to visit Volta River Authority Website