This solar plant is expected to be the fourth biggest in the world

Dec 4, 2012 09:54 GMT  ·  By

A UK clean energy firm is now readying itself to build Africa's largest solar plant. The costs for this green-oriented project amount to $400 million, and the plant is expected to be up and running as early as the year 2015.

According to several analysts, not only is this solar photovoltaic power plant to be the largest built in Africa thus far: it will also be one of the biggest in the world, meaning that only three other such plants worldwide will surpass it in terms of electricity generation capacity.

Click Green informs us that this 155-megawatt solar plant is to be erected in Ghana, whose power generating capacity will thus be increased by roughly 6%.

As is the case with all such environmentally-friendly projects, the power plant will also make its contribution to local economy. More precisely, it will create hundreds of job opportunities for the people presently residing in West Africa.

500 of these jobs will be temporary ones and will only be available during the construction phase, whereas 200 will be permanent ones.

The CEO of Blue Energy, Chris Dean, wished to emphasize the fact that, “Ghana’s forward-thinking strategy puts it in a strong position to lead the renewable energy revolution in sub-Saharan Africa.”

Furthermore, “Nzema [the official name for this solar plant project] is a case study in how governments can unlock the huge potential for solar energy in Africa. We are delighted that it will make a strong contribution to the national economy, provide much needed generating capacity and help develop the skills of the future.”

According to the same source, work on this project is to debut towards the end of 2013, and Blue Energy hopes that, by October 2015, they will have succeeded in installing as many as 630,000 solar PV modules.

The plant is to be connected to 161kV West African Power Pool transmission line, whose capacity can supposedly support this new load that is to be fed into it.