Regional training course for teachers on energy demand analysis & use of IAEA’S tool MAED opens in Accra

Deputy Director-General of Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) Professor Dickson Adomako has urged participants at ongoing Regional training course for teachers on energy demand analysis and use of IAEA’S tool MAED in Accra-Ghana to leverage on the two-week training workshop to build international networks to deepen partnerships and integration of sub-regional energy demand analysis.

Nuclear Power programme remains one of the green energy options most African countries want to add to their energy mix.With industrialisation heavily depending on energy, the purpose of the latest IAEA AFRA training workshop, being facilitated by GAEC is to acquaint selected Africa’s energy experts and book runners of Africa’s energy sector with modern tools being used for nuclear power, energy planning, in accordance with professionals’ capabilities as African states gear to joining nuclear power club. Part of the agenda is to use Africa Regional expertise to train managers of regional programmes with participants drawn from African countries under African Regional Agreement Programme (AFRA).

In his OPENING REMARKS AT
REGIONAL TRAINING COURSE FOR TEACHERS ON ENERGY DEMAND ANALYSIS AND USE OF THE IAEA’S TOOL MAED in Accra-Ghana by IAEA AFRA, facilitated by Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) slated for 12-23 SEPTEMBER 2022, Deputy Director-General of Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) Professor Dickson Adomako said “I have come realize that energy is key for the advancement of every developing nation. Without adequate energy, nations will continue to lack the necessary drive for industrialization, a fair socio-economic balance and development as a whole. As the foremost step in every big initiative, planning, which requires the evaluation of existing conditions comes first. This has created the need for our gathering here today. After the two-week training, we anticipate that your capacities to use MAED for planning to conduct studies for electricity supply, energy system options, energy investment planning and energy environment policy formulation shall be enhanced”.

Participants will acquaint themselves with basic principles in energy planning. The key performance indicators include efforts to understand fundamentals of nuclear power and targets to achieve at the end of the day, the parameters involved, human capital development to put in place and the direction one wants to go. This is because a country cannot just stand up and conclude that wants to put up a nuclear power plant. There are stages and processes to follow including selecting site interwoven with site rankings, reports writing, data needed, waste management and more. This requires a workshop to brainstom, network, share knowledge and ideas, sieve it to get the best out of many.

Prof. Dickson Adomako has also urged participants to take total advantage of the training workshop to build the necessary expertise.

Prof. Adomako noted that “To the participants, over the coming days, you shall have the privilege to balance your training sessions and experience our rich Ghanaian culture. Make the most out of this. I urge you all to take full advantage of this training to build the necessary expertise. But beyond this, leverage on this training to build international networks towards further collaboration and integration of sub-regional energy demand analysis.
We wish you a successful workshop.
Thank you”.

“I wish to seize this opportunity to express our profound gratitude to the International Atomic Energy Agency for identifying the need for this training workshop and providing crucial resources to facilitate this training. This training has come at a timely moment when several African nations are beginning to see the need for expanding their energy supply to meet the fast growing demand”, Prof. Adomako said.

Contributing to the debate, IAEA’s Energy Planning Expert Mario TOT expressed confidence that the training workshop will strengthen the planning capacity of energy professionals through provision of analytical tools.

Speaking during his opening remaks via zoom, Mario TOT spelt out that “participants will be assigned topic to work on per week interwoven with theory and methodology related to MAED and example to be developed in MAED”.

According to IAEA’S Energy Planning Expert Mario TOT, the participants are expected to be “on time, follow various lectures from resource persons, conduct case study and deliver compelling presentations whilst urging all and sundry to exhibit best performance”.

Energy planning helps in creating a picture of the current energy situation of a country and estimated future changes based on expected or likely plans and patterns of population growth, resource availability, industrialisation, agricultural energy requirement.

Meanwhile, Executive Secretary of Energy Commission Oscar Amoono-Neiser says the “workshop is timely and will help Africa to come out of energy challenges”.

Participants

African Editors sums up expectations of participants from Kenya, Cameroon and Morocco.

Felister Mukuri, a participant from Kenya Power in East Africa expressed confidence that “this is a good opportunity for Kenya as a country to be selected to be experts. In Kenya, the model has not been used so far giving the way our data is available, but we hop to learn from this training and apply it in our planning system. There is a Nuclear Board in Kenya”.

Another participant, Joseph Ebako, an Engineer from Cameroon’s Ministry of Water Resources and Energy says “As an Engineer and energy planner in my country we have a duty to meet the energy demand and we can’t do this if we can’t analyse the how much energy demand is needed and how much to produce. Government needs to know the amount of energy demand and how to produce it. This training is aimed at alerting how individuals can do computer based numerical modeling to determine before hand, how much energy will be needed. Personally, this will help me to work and provide advice to policy-makers in my country Cameroon to know which form of energy to produce, what quantity and at what time”.

“My expectations from this event are that the advanced training affords us the opportunity to build a strong capacity in terms of long-term energy demand projection under different socio-economic scenarios. And this is a very important step for sustainable energy planning in our respective countries. I think that regional cooperation and training is necessary for Africa to address future challenges related to energy transition and climat change. We have a good national expertise in energy planning, and therefore, we need to strengthen technical cooperation and knowledge sharing at the regional level, and this is one of the main targets of this event “, Soufiane Hachad, a participant from Morocco

In all, about 22 participants across Africa Region in Kenya, Cameroon, Morocco, Togo and other AU member states are taking part in the crucial energy planning and training workshop. In attendance of the opening of the workshop were Director of Planning and Economic Studies Section of the IAEA, Project Counterparts, Staff, Established IAEA Experts, Resource persons, IAEA Experts Tomislav COP, Emmanuel Guemene DAUNTIO and workshop participants.

Source: Jerry John Akornor