The US Department of Energy (DOE) and Ghana Atomic Energy Commission’s (GAEC’s) Nuclear Power Institute (NPI) have launched Africa’s first regional Clean Energy Training Centre. DOE said the centre will serve as a regional training hub for Ghana and other like-minded African countries considering nuclear energy as part of their economic development, energy security, and decarbonisation goals.
The training centre builds upon previous US activities in Ghana, which included a virtual training programme hosted by the US that covered the fundamentals of civilian nuclear power programmes ranging from project development and financing to nuclear security and national nuclear laws.
Through the training centre, the US will offer additional technical expertise and training with support from its nuclear industry, national laboratories, and academic institutions on topics such as workforce capacity building, reactor design and operation, and the management of used nuclear fuel.
“This centre will be a critical resource for Ghana and other African countries working to deploy nuclear technology to address energy challenges while contributing to sustainable development,” said US Deputy Assist Secretary for International Cooperation Aleshia Duncan. “The centre also symbolises the United States continued commitment to knowledge sharing, ensuring like-mind countries have access to technical, regulatory, and workforce development resources to successfully launch, and more importantly sustain, nuclear programmes.”
DOE is requesting an additional $8m in Fiscal Year 2025 funds to help establish similar hubs to support new and emerging nuclear energy programmes in Africa, Asia, and Central and Eastern Europe. The Clean Energy Training Centres are led by the Office of Nuclear Energy’s Office of International Cooperation.
DOE said it is planning a second US-Africa Nuclear Energy Summit (USANES) focused on industry readiness. The summit will be held in collaboration with Kenyan Nuclear Power and Energy Agency and the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum of Kenya.
The first USANES was held in Ghana in 2023, organised in partnership with Ghana’s Ministry of Energy and NPI. DOE said attendees included senior-level officials from “national laboratories in the United States and across Africa”. This came shortly after the Second Russia-Africa Summit in St Petersburg, which attracted delegations from 49 African countries, 17 of which were led by their heads of state.
In May, the US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Security & Non-proliferation, Ann Ganzer, announced a nuclear cooperation initiative to support Ghana’s nuclear power development, including establishing Ghana as a small modular reactor (SMR) regional hub. Accompanied by US Charge d’Affaires Rolf Olson, Ganzer attended the signing of key arrangements facilitated by the US Foundational Infrastructure for the Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) programme, to advance deployment of a US SMR in Ghana.
These included two memorandums of understanding between the GAEC and the International Science & Technology Center (ISTC) which sought to establish Ghana as part of a SMR supply chain in the region including the deployment of US NuScale SMR technology.
Also in May, Robert Sogbadji, deputy director for power in charge of nuclear and alternative energy said Ghana will select a company to build its first NPP by December from possible suppliers including France’s EDF, US-based NuScale Power and Regnum Technology Group, China National Nuclear Corporation South Korea’s Kepco and its subsidiary Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) as well as Russia’s Rosatom.
Sogbadji said Ghana aims to add about 1,000 MWe of power from nuclear to its electricity mix by 2034. He added that the government has already secured a site with capacity to accommodate up to five reactors. He noted that it would prefer a “build, own, operate and transfer” arrangement with room for local equity holding.
