The Volta River Project was Ghana's founding national development initiative, championed by President Kwame Nkrumah as a combined scheme to dam the Volta River, generate electricity, and supply cheap power to a new aluminum smelting industry at Tema. Construction of the Akosombo Dam ran from 1961 to 1965, financed jointly by Ghana, the United States, the United Kingdom and the World Bank, with the American aluminum company Kaiser building the associated smelter. The project was intended as a cornerstone of Ghanaian industrialization and remains the country's largest single source of domestic electricity generation.
Facts
Project TypeNational Energy Initiative 1 Completion Year StatusCompleted in 1965; the dam and associated aluminum smelter it enabled remain in operation 2 ScaleBuilt the Akosombo Dam and its power station of about 1,020 MW, along with Lake Volta, the largest reservoir by surface area in the world 2 Connections
Uses Source
Hydroelectric development project including the Akosombo Dam on the Volta River, Ghana.
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Ghana, located there.
Sources
1. Encyclopedia Britannica
2. International Energy Agency Official Site
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