Ghana plans to send electricity to Nigeria

Ghana is looking beyond its borders for the next chapter of its power-sector ambitions, with Nigeria emerging as a major potential destination for electricity exports.

The country’s Minister for Energy and Green Transition, Dr John Abdulai Jinapor, says Ghana is prepared to supply power to Nigeria as Accra works to transform the country into a regional energy hub.

The plan builds on electricity links Ghana already maintains with Togo, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso through the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo). Ghana’s transmission network is interconnected with those neighbouring countries, allowing cross-border electricity trading.

Speaking on August 21, Jinapor said Ghana’s objective is not simply to generate enough electricity for its own population, but to build the generation and transmission capacity needed to serve the wider West African market.

“So clearly, this falls in line with our vision, and we believe that if we can achieve this, Ghana can become an energy hub for the whole of the West African region in the shortest possible time,” he said.

Nigeria would be a considerably larger prize than Ghana’s existing export destinations, given the country’s huge population and persistent demand for dependable electricity.

But getting significant volumes of Ghanaian power into Nigeria will not happen simply by flipping a switch. Transmission infrastructure remains the critical piece of the puzzle. Jinapor acknowledged that substantial investment would be required to support the scale of electricity trade being envisaged.

From power producer to regional supplier

Ghana’s proposed expansion comes as the government seeks to strengthen its electricity mix with a combination of natural gas, renewable energy and nuclear power.

The objective is twofold: improve reliability at home while creating enough surplus capacity to support regional exports.

That ambition is also linked to President John Dramani Mahama’s 24-Hour Economy programme, which is designed to encourage businesses and industries to operate for longer periods. A dependable power supply is central to that agenda because factories, commercial operators and other businesses cannot sustain round-the-clock activity without reliable electricity.

Ghana’s push to become a regional energy hub is not entirely new. The country has pursued cross-border power development for years, and previous energy plans identified transmission expansion to neighbouring markets, including Nigeria, as part of the broader regional strategy.

What is changing now is the renewed emphasis on turning that long-standing ambition into a larger commercial opportunity.

Nigeria’s own energy answer may be hiding in cassava waste

While Ghana is looking outward for a larger electricity market, Nigeria is exploring ways to squeeze more energy from resources it already produces in abundance.

One such resource is cassava wastewater.

At cassava-processing centres, effluent is frequently discharged without adequate treatment, creating the risk of contamination of nearby streams and other water bodies. But researchers say the same organic material responsible for the environmental problem could be converted into a source of renewable energy.

Prof. Taiwo Hammed, an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Technical Director of the Renewable Resources Centre at the University of Ibadan, said cassava wastewater can be used as feedstock for biogas production when properly managed.

Hammed made the remarks at a U.S.-Nigeria Transdisciplinary Workshop at the University of Ibadan titled “From Cassava Effluent to Energy.”

According to him, the efficiency of the process depends on several factors, including the type and quantity of feedstock, retention time, temperature and the nutrient balance required by microorganisms to break down the organic material.

The wastewater can also be combined with materials such as cow dung to introduce microorganisms that aid digestion and increase gas production. The resulting biogas can be used for applications including lighting and heating, while the leftover slurry can potentially be converted into solid and liquid fertiliser.

Two countries, different routes to the same goal

The developments in Ghana and Nigeria highlight two different approaches to the same West African energy challenge.

Ghana is seeking to expand generation and transmission so it can sell more electricity across borders, with Nigeria potentially becoming its biggest new customer.

Nigeria, meanwhile, is exploring distributed and unconventional energy sources, including the conversion of agricultural waste into useful fuel.

The cassava initiative is particularly significant because it could tackle two problems at once: reducing the environmental burden created by untreated effluent while producing renewable energy.

A practical demonstration of converting cassava effluent into biogas was also conducted at the University of Ibadan’s Renewable Resources Centre during the workshop, bringing the idea beyond the laboratory and into a demonstration setting.

For Nigeria, however, imported electricity from Ghana would remain only one part of the solution. The country will still need to expand its own generation, transmission and distribution networks while developing alternative energy sources.

For Ghana, the challenge is equally clear: before becoming West Africa’s electricity powerhouse, it must first ensure that its own grid can comfortably support the export ambition.

The emerging picture, therefore, is not simply about Ghana selling electricity to Nigeria.

It is about a region attempting to rethink how energy is produced, moved and monetised — with cross-border power trading on one side and waste-to-energy innovation on the other.

If Ghana can build the infrastructure to move surplus power into Nigeria and other West African markets, Jinapor’s vision of Ghana as an energy hub could move from political aspiration to regional economic reality.