in the ‘70s when we had some banking cri- sis in this country, a lot of the foreign com- panies just left. i don’t know what might happen in the future, but if something as basic as electricity which is central to de- velopment is not controlled as a country, it could be dangerous. even if they are pri- vately owned, they ought to be ghanaian- owned. so that we can be certain that the bulk of electricity generation in ghana which satisfies the base capacity needed to run the country is owned by ghanaians, ei- ther government or private. having said so, to come to your ques- tion, bpa is the right choice because we need to have an entity in a country such as ours, without economic arrangement as it is right now, which champions the devel- opment of the renewable industry. we’ve worked and demonstrated in the past four years that we’ve trained our staff and have the infrastructure to be able to lead the country in that direction. today, if you look at the national grid, you find out that generation is all down south. this is inappropriate because all our generation sources will be wiped out if there is a natural disaster. they should be dispersed across the country. we have gone ahead and secured six different sites apart from bui, around the five northern regions. those sites are pretty close to gridco’s terminal points for bulk offload- ing so that we can tie in at those points. so, if you go to sawla, tumu, bawku, zebilla, yendi and buipe, we have identified sites that will have over 100mw generation ca- pacity, which are less than five kilometers, in most cases, from the substations of gridco. with this kind of infrastructure we have developed, any serious investor who wants to operate independently without cooper- ating with any government institution will be compelled to come talk to us. we are in- terested in the energy that will be derived from the investment and not necessarily the ownership of the plant. emg: what are some strategic part- nerships the bpa has engaged in the past? fo: we have a lot of potential investors that we can cooperate with. however, the difficulty has been operating beyond the power purchase agreement (ppa) that we have with the electricity company of ghana (ecg). per our ppa, we supply them with 1030gw of energy each year. now, if you have made an investment and are going to generate more electricity than that, it means you don’t have any market for the rest. the good thing that happened was last november when the act was amended and we were given the freedom to look for off-takers to sell to. our development agenda beyond look- ing at what government wants to achieve july 2021 “ our energy consump- tion as a country is around 3000mw at peak, but if you look at the developed coun- tries, this might be just the requirement for one city. so, our installed capacity of 5000mw is nothing, and if we seek to develop this country and make it industri- alised as government has professed to do, then we need to be am- bitious with our energy management in ten years from now, that is, to be able to have the solar component in the energy mix going up to ten percent, we are also looking for off-takers to be able to generate and sell to them beyond ecg. we don’t have too many potential off-takers around, but certainly if the price is right, we would be able to develop this market. another restraining factor has been the grid itself. whether the grid operators are in a position to take as much as you can produce. we have built our own substation for solar evacuation, and we’re talking about 250mw at bui as one location. but we are still having some studies and con- versations with gridco to see how much can be taken. once they tighten up the grid and improve on it, i think all the six sta- tions i mentioned would be fully developed over the period of ten years. emg: what does the authority criti- cally need to smoothen out its oper- ations? fo: one that comes to mind immedi- ately is that beyond the enabling act, we should have a clear statement from the ministry to energise bpa to continue on this trajectory. we have sat down and looked at government’s programme to try to help government achieve the vision of increasing the solar component in the en- ergy mix. however, every now and then, you keep hearing news about a vra-bpa merger, and this is a bit discouraging. there is nothing wrong if government wants to merge the two, but there ought to be some clarity. i’ve been here for four years, and in some years there have been discussions on this matter and in other years nothing is said about it. so, it keeps you wondering if we are going to go this way or that way. i think there ought to be clarity that bpa, though government-funded, we want to keep it as it is and let it grow to become an alternative to vra, so that we have two major public entities in the generation sec- tor. for nothing at all, i think without question, the awards that we have received for the past four years has firmly placed us as the leaders in the renewable sector. we have huge experience also in hydro. over the past three years we’ve given im- mense help to nuclear power ghana ltd, which we continue to incubate here. we have given them free accommodation and support their staff and budget. we have helped them to complete phase one of their programme and are currently on phase two. i have shown a lot of personal commitment to their programme to bring it to where it is because we believe that all these facilities (sources of energy) in terms of land, water, etc. are finite. our energy consumption as a country is around 3000mw at peak, but if you look at the de- veloped countries, this might be just the requirement for one city. so, our installed capacity of 5000mw is nothing, and if we seek to develop this country and make it industrialised as government has pro- fessed to do, then we need to be ambitious with our energy management. these are some of the things that when you look at from within, it becomes a bit disturbing. i would like to see a bit more ambition being displayed in the generation of electricity in this country. emg: in becoming an authority, will that shift your focus or rather strengthen your direction? fo: i believe it strengthens us. let’s go back into history. once upon a time, it was just vra which was involved in genera- tion, transmission and distribution. first, they hived off the distribution to form ecg. i think just about the time bpa was being established, gridco was birthed too, so that vra could focus on generation. along the lines, they realised that you can’t play the game and be a referee at the same time, so energy commission was estab- lished to regulate the entire market. some ten years ago or so, when ghana was going through the energy crisis, the thinking was to establish an authority for renewable en- ergy which will pursue all renewables to be energyghana.com 27