An investigation into the determinants of hydropower generation in Ghana

The role of electricity to the growth and developmental process of an economy cannot be overemphasized. Therefore, it is the quest of authorities in every economy to meet the supply of electricity needs of the citizens and industries. Although both renewable and non renewable energy source are available for an economy to generate electricity from, the recent concern for cleaner environment has raised interest of many government, environmentalists and policy makers to generate electricity power from renewable source - that are noted for emitting low carbon emission - prominent among them is hydro source. Meanwhile, the electricity supply for the Ghanaian economy which for years was mainly from hydro source has witnessed a reduction in her hydropower generation in the midst of growing electricity consumption but limited supply pushing the country to resort to power sharing. The paper thus investigates into the drivers of the declining hydro power generation in Ghana using annual time series data for the period 1977-2011. Estimations from the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares, Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares and Canonical Cointegration Regression estimators revealed Ghana’s hydropower generation is influenced by foreign direct investment, alternate source of energy, environmental degradation and trade openness.