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The Bui Hydroelectric Project was conceived long ago after Mr
Albert Kitson had visited the gorge in the 1920s and declared
the site suitable for a Hydro plant. Successive governments from
Dr. Nkrumah’s time till the turn of the 21st Century had made
unsuccessful attempts to construct the dam. In July 2007 however,
the Government of Ghana secured funding from the Chinese Government
to undertake the project.
When completed, the Bui Project will have a maximum generation
capacity of 400 MW and a net average annual energy production of
1000 gigawatt hour/year (GWh/yr). The Ghana Government considers
that the implementation of the Bui project is critical to meeting
Ghana's future energy needs.
The Bui Project is located
on the Black Volta River on the border of the
Bole (Northern Region) and Tain (Brong-Ahafo
Region) districts in North-Western Ghana, approximately 200
kilometers from Buipe, where the Lake Volta created by the Akosombo
Dam ends. All components of the project lie entirely within the
boundaries of Ghana. The specific location of the Bui Project is
particularly suitable for a hydroelectric project because of the
relatively deep gorge where the Black Volta River flows through the
Banda Hills.
The project includes a main dam in the Bui Gorge and two smaller
saddle dams in the neighboring Banda Hills, which will
create a reservoir occupying 440km2 at full supply. A powerhouse and a
switchyard will be built nearby the main dam, and new transmission
lines will run east from the project site to the existing
north-south transmission line corridor near Teselima and then south
to substations at Techiman and Kenyasi. In addition, there will also
be a construction of an irrigation system as well as a construction
of a nucleus of a metropolis called the Bui City. |
