Study Tours

STUDY TOUR A

Provisional plans are for Provisional plans are for Tour A to travel from Accra to Akuse (about two hours by road) for visits to visit Ghana’s iconic Akosombo and Kpong dams.

The 114 m-high, 660 m-long, Akosombo rockfill dam was built between 1960 and1965, initially to supply power for the aluminium smelting industry. Today it mainly supplies electricity for increasing domestic consumption and also for export to neighbouring countries in West Africa. The dam impounds Lake Volta, which has a surface area of 8502 km². The installed hydro capacity is 1038from six units, operating under a head of 69 m.

The Kpong hydropower dam, commissioned in 1982, operates as a run of river scheme in tandem with Akosombo (which is 24 km upstream), balancing its discharge, ensuring efficient hydropower production, and also supplying irrigation water. Kpong is an 18 m-high, 240 m-long earthfill embankment, with a concrete spillway equipped with 15 radial gates, now to be refurbished as part of the Kpong Dam Rehabilitation Project, for which contracts were awarded in late 2024. The upstream eastern and western dykes of the dam will be refurbished, and displaced rockfill on the dam face will be repaired. Instrumentation will also be upgraded.

This tour may also include a visit to some mini hydro schemes in the region.

STUDY TOUR B

It is also provisionally planned, in collaboration with the Bui Power Authority, to offer Tour B, to the Bui dam, located further to the north. There would be an overnight stop en route for some cultural/touristic visits.

The 108 m-high, 493 m-long Bui RCC gravity dam, flanked by two earth- and rockfill saddle dams, and equipped with a five-bay spillway, was completed in 2014. It has a 400 MW hydro plant (with three Francis units). As well as substantially increasing national capacity, Bui serves to enhance reliability and security of supply to the northern region of Ghana. The reservoir hosts a 5 MW floating solar PV installation, and there are imminent plans for 50 MW more solar PV, and ultimately to develop a 250 MW complex comprising wind and solar power; a 30 MWh  battery energy storage system (BESS) has already been installed.