Ghana Most Likely To Partner France For First Nuclear Power Plant

Ghana is mostly likely to partner France for its first nuclear power plant, energynewsafrica.com can report.

Currently, France operates 56 nuclear reactors with a total capacity of 61,370MWe while one reactor is under construction with a capacity of 1,630MWe.

Earlier this week, Ghana’s Minister for Energy, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, and some officials of Nuclear Power Ghana met with senior officials of French Electricity and Nuclear Power Company for discussions on the project.

In 2021, Ghana’s agency spearheading the nuclear power agenda, Nuclear Power Ghana, through the Ministry of Energy, issued a Request for Information (RFI) to six vendor countries namely; China, India, Russia, USA, South Korea and France.

The RFI sought both technical, financial and contractual information from the vendor countries regarding the technology they intend to deploy to Ghana.

Five out of the six countries responded including France.

In a Facebook post after meeting the officials of French Electricity and Nuclear Power Company, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh wrote: “Government continues to deepen its efforts at including nuclear energy in our generation mix in the medium-to-long-term.

“It is for this reason that yesterday, I met senior officials of the French Electricity and Nuclear Power Company. Discussions aimed at partnering with the company; a leading name in the nuclear power space in the context of Ghana’s nuclear power development.”

According to him, Ghana remains committed to its nuclear energy prospects, adding, “I do not doubt that a potential marriage between Ghana and any of its partners will advance this cause fully, as we work collectively to achieve a dependable and sustainable energy to support economic growth.”

Ghana is at the second phase of its nuclear programme and hopes to construct the first nuclear power plant by 2030.

This portal cannot tell for now the size of the reactor Ghana has decided but what Dr Yamoah, CEO of Nuclear Power Ghana, told this portal in 2021 is that the size of the reactors proposed by the vendors ranges from 700MWe to 1400MWe for large reactors and 50MWe to 300MWe for small modular reactors.

Source: https://energynewsafrica.com