The Chief Operating Officer, COO, of Seabased Mr. Robert Leanderson has confirmed that plans to build a power plant in partnership with TC’s Energy in Ada are far advanced as all technical studies for the plant have been completed.
Speaking exclusively to Goldstreet Business he said their studies have revealed that Ada has the best sea wave climate suitable for the project as the buoys need to be deployed in steady waves to operate efficiently.
He said unlike some parts of Europe that have extremely fluctuating sea waves, that of Ada have been found to be steady which makes it ideal. Seabased’s wave energy converters rely on the kinetic motion of the ocean to move buoys moored to linear generators on the sea floor, thus generating electricity according to the company’s website.
The COO pointed out that ultimately, the plant will to be installed in the Atlantic Ocean at Ada Foah will be built in phases starting from 100MW and eventually scaled up to 1000MW on full completion.
Mr. Leanderson who is leading a team of Seabased engineers are currently in the country for final discussions with Ghana Grid Company, GridCo, to finetune some aspects of the project.
Concluding, he stressed that if the project were not true and they are committed to its execution, he would not have been in Ghana.
Ghana is the first country in Africa to deploy this novel technology which will not suffer the fate of Ghana’s hydro power sources which have been negatively affected by the erratic rainfall patterns forcing the country to resort to use of thermal energy.
The 100 MW wave park in Ada Foah will be one of the largest commercial contracts in the fledgling wave energy industry which has the potential to provide more than 100% of the electricity generated globally today.
A contract between TC’s Energy and Seabased signed in Brussels, Belgium on March 20 this year mandates the latter to design, manufacture, and install the turnkey wave energy park with an option for local final assembly of non-core technology as the project scales up. This would create local jobs in operations and maintenance of the wave park, according to the memorandum of understanding.
In an exclusive interview with Mr. Anthony Opoku, CEO of TC’s Energy, he said 5MW of the expected full 100mw will be ‘built this year since we already have infrastructure on the ground to evacuate 20MW while additional infrastructure is being built to evacuate the anticipated 100MW expected to be delivered within the next 24 months.’
By Kafui Gale-Zoyiku
