Bui Power Authority
The Bui Power Authority (BPA) is seeking collaboration and agreement from two German institutions for capacity building of its staff in order to carry out its mission as a leader in renewable energy.
A BPA team led by its Board Chairman, Kwasi Ameyaw-Cheremeh (MP for Sunyani East), has since been to Berlin, Germany, to sign three separate agreements in that regard.
Among the delegation members were Gina Blay, Ghana’s Ambassador to Germany, Samuel Kofi Ahiave Dzamesi, Chief Executive Officer of BPA, and Wisdom Ahiataku Togobo, Director of Renewables.
The agreements followed fruitful discussions by the two parties.
Under the terms of the first Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), BPA will work with Berlin Technical University (TU Berlin), Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, and the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) in Sunyani as partners to implement the Professional Education for Renewable Energies in Ghana (ProREG).
The ProREG is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
The agreement allows BPA technical staff who want to pursue higher education programmes in Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy to study academic areas relating to BPA’s work and mandate at any of the three universities.
Professionals from TU Berlin will also assist in the development of practical models and appropriate research topics for BPA technical professionals.
The second MoU was signed with the Berliner Hochschule für Technik’s Distance Learning Institute (DLI), under which both parties will collaborate to build capacity of BPA technicians who are unable to advance degree programmes, as well as non-technical staff working in finance, procurement, communication, and energy law.
The third MoU was signed with the Berlin School of Technology of the SRH Berlin University of Applied Science (BST-SRH).
Under the terms of this agreement, BPA will work with BST-SRH to promote a systematic exchange of experts and students between BPA and BST that will contribute to the development of renewable energies through the development of academic and research activities based on the BST-SRH’s existing collaboration with KNUST and the UENR.
This collaboration will encourage Ghanaian students to enroll in the Master’s programmes offered by the BST-SRH, as well as engineers and experts from BPA and other institutions in Ghana to attend the BST-SRH’s winter and summer schools on relevant topics such as finance, procurement, energy law, communication, and human resource management, among others.
The delegation travelled to Rathenow to visit Sunfarming company, where solar PV farms are integrated with agriculture, thereby providing a conducive environment for vegetable and crop farming under solar panels and for animal farming for animals such as ducks, geese, fowls, cattle, etc.
Instead of leaving all of the land space beneath the panel structure unutilised, these animals are all housed under the panel structure.
Kwasi Ameyaw-Cheremeh, Chairman of the BPA Board, and his CEO, Samuel Kofi Ahiave Dzamesi, were quite impressed by this kind of farming and agreed to collaborate with Sunfarming to build up a prototype at the Bui Generating Station.
Dzamesi stressed the importance of investor support in the construction of Ghana’s Western Rivers to enable BPA to expand solar deployment for hybridisation of hydro power to provide uninterrupted generation of solar during the day and hydro at night.
The delegation also met with the German Ministry for Environment and Economic Affairs, where opportunities for investment in BPA were presented to them.
The German Ministry lauded BPA on its achievement in the deployment of Renewable Energy in Ghana and promised to extend support to BPA through their Development Agencies.
By Ernest Kofi Adu