CPP Rejects Tariff Increases

Samia Yaba Nkrumah

Samia Yaba Nkrumah

The Convention People’s Party (CPP) says any increases in energy tariffs would plunge Ghanaians into more hardships and economically disorganize the masses.

In a release issued in Accra and signed by Robert Woode, CPP Spokesperson on Energy, the party said Ghana’s energy problems cannot be solved by tariff increases.

“As a country we cannot continue to impose more and more hardship on an already impoverished population.

“Our country has enormous renewable energy resource waiting to be tapped provided we initiate bold actions, and that is what a CPP government will do and can do.”

The CPP said that the Volta River offers a solution which a CPP government will pursue with haste.

“We have the capability and have done the calculations.”

It said Ghana records the most rain in the Western Region compared to the rest of the country and therefore installing wind turbines in this corridor will utilize the wind energy and consequently reduce the wind force that induce the tidal waves around Ada and Keta.

“Standard wind turbines with average height 120 metres and diameter 85 metres would generate 3 megawatts of energy per unit. The wind corridor stretching from Ada to the north is over 1,000 kilometres.

“Our studies indicate that this is the biggest and most reliable wind corridors in Africa. Installing these turbines at a distance of 300 meters triangular should produce 9900 towers or 29,700 megawatts of energy. Now given a wind outage of 66 percent over the whole stretch of 1000 kilometres should guarantee 9000 megawatts at all times.”

It said modern wind turbines, which are manufactured from fibre glass, can be produced from a reactivated Aboso Glass Factory (fibre glass is extracted from molten glass).

This would provide a large potential market for any investor willing to take part in the reactivation of the Abosso   Glass Factory.  This will create many jobs. We require less than 2 megawatts of electrical energy to cover the total needs of the factory.

It cited Colonel Jackson, a renowned Ghanaian inventor of international repute and a member of CTED, (UN Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate), who is presently working to patent a new type of wind turbine which is more efficient than the existing ones.

“The Colonel believes that existing wind turbines utilize only five percent of the wind in contact with the blade.” His design incorporates hundred percent contact with the wind and consequently reduces the size of the wind tower and blade.

Dr Kwame Nkrumah, in 1963 at the OAU Conference at Addis Ababa said, “With enormous electric power, we shall drain marshes and swamps, clear infested areas, feed the under-nourished and rid out parasites and diseases. It is within the possibilities of science and technology to make even the Sahara bloom into a vast field with verdant vegetation for agricultural and industrial development.  We shall harness the media to lift our people from the dark recesses of illiteracy.”