As Ghana intensifies discussions around renewable energy and the growing public push for solar power, former Minister for Power, Dr. Kwabena Donkor, is warning that the country risks confusing household energy solutions with the much bigger challenge of industrialization.
According to him, while solar energy has an important role to play in Ghana’s energy transition agenda, it cannot power the scale of industrial growth the country desperately needs.
In an exclusive interview with The High Street Journal, Dr. Donkor made a strong case for Ghana to aggressively pursue nuclear energy, insisting that the country should target at least 2,000 megawatts of nuclear power within the next decade to secure a reliable industrial future.
Understanding Ghana’s Energy Needs
Dr. Donkor indicates that the debate is not about whether renewable energy is good or bad. Rather, it is about understanding the practical limitations of each energy source and matching them to the country’s developmental ambitions.
“You cannot use solar for base load,” he stressed. Base load refers to the constant and stable electricity needed to keep factories, industries, hospitals, mines, and entire cities running day and night without interruption.
Dr. Donkor argues that although solar technology is useful for homes, offices, lighting, and small-scale consumption, it currently lacks the consistency required to support heavy industrial activity.
“No serious factory can run on solar at this time,” he stated.
The Enthusiasm for Solar
His comments come at a time when enthusiasm for solar installations is growing across Ghana due to rising electricity costs, climate concerns, and global pressure to transition away from fossil fuels.
Some proponents are making a case for the government to subsidize the installation of solar panels across the country.
But Dr. Donkor believes that this conversation has become overly simplified. According to him, many advocates of renewable energy fail to distinguish between domestic energy use and industrial energy demand.
For households, solar can significantly reduce electricity bills and improve access to cleaner energy. However, he explains that factories operating heavy machinery, steel processing plants, manufacturing hubs, and large-scale mining operations require uninterrupted electricity around the clock.
This, he believes, the current solar technology alone cannot guarantee economically at scale.
Ghana’s Constrained Renewable Options
He further notes that Ghana’s renewable energy options are naturally constrained. Aside from biomass, he says the country lacks strong wind resources capable of sustaining commercially viable wind farms on a large scale.
“We are not gifted with good winds,” he explained, adding that only a few parts of the country possess conditions suitable for meaningful wind energy investments.
He also pointed out that Ghana has already exploited much of its major hydroelectric potential through projects such as the Akosombo Dam and Kpong Dam, limiting the country’s ability to significantly expand hydro generation in the future.
That reality, he argues, leaves Ghana with a difficult but unavoidable choice if it truly wants to industrialize amid the transition talks.
The Case for Nuclear Energy
For Dr. Donkor, nuclear energy offers the stable “base load” power needed to transform Ghana into a serious industrial economy.
Unlike solar or wind, nuclear plants can produce large volumes of uninterrupted electricity continuously for decades, making them suitable for supporting manufacturing expansion, industrial parks, rail systems, and future urbanization.
However, he believes the country is lagging behind when it comes to its nuclear power agenda. He believes Ghana should have started its nuclear journey years ago.
“The most sustainable one now is nuclear,” he said bluntly, adding that “We should have started yesterday,” he lamented.
Ghana, he says, could use nuclear power as the backbone of the national grid while renewable sources such as solar operate alongside it to support homes and supplementary demand. In his view, this balanced approach would allow Ghana to pursue cleaner energy without sacrificing industrial growth.
He is therefore calling for an accelerated strategy that will ensure that the country gets at least 2000MW of nuclear in the next decade.
The Bottomline
The former power minister’s comments reignite a longstanding national debate over how Ghana can simultaneously achieve energy security, environmental sustainability, and economic transformation.
However, while nuclear energy promises stable electricity and lower long-term carbon emissions, critics often raise concerns about the enormous upfront costs, safety issues, waste disposal challenges, and the technical expertise required to manage nuclear infrastructure.
