Ghana plans to beat UN’s 2030 deadline on energy access by 2020
A Ghana national action plan for sustainable energy project designed to extend electricity to all communities by the year 2020 has been launched in Accra.
If the target is achieved, Ghana will be ten years ahead of the 2030 deadline set by the United Nations for all countries to attain universal access to energy for their citizens.
The action plan is the blueprint that details efforts that would take advantage of all available energy generating sources with time lines and cost implications.
Currently, Ghana’s coverage, in terms of electricity, stands at 74 per cent. Ghana currently comes fourth behind Mauritius, South Africa and Cape Verde in electricity access in Africa.
Energy Minister, Dr Joe Oteng Agyei, said in a speech read on his behalf that the government had been implementing the National Electrification Scheme (NES) which had increased electricity coverage from 15 per cent in 1990 to the 74 per cent currently, since 1990.
He said the challenge that the new action plan sought to address was to translate the massive increase in access levels into productive use to boost small and medium-scale economic activities such as irrigation, agro-processing and the refrigeration of fish at inland landing sites.
In the area of renewable energy, Dr Oteng Agyei said 15,000 homes in remote off-grid communities would be supplied with solar systems through a 10.9 million-dollar support from the World Bank over the period.
He said the Ministry of Energy had completed a five-million euro project under which 1,286 solar systems had been installed for clinics, schools and security outposts in remote areas, especially island communities, with support from the Spanish Government.
To achieve the government’s target of 10 per cent renewable energy in the national energy mix, Dr Oteng Agyei said, Parliament had passed the Renewable Energy Act to ensure investment in the sector.
For his part, the Deputy Minister of Environment Science and Technology, Dr Mustapha Ahmed, told participants at the function that the government was investing in all available areas of energy production to ensure that there was enough for domestic use and industry.
Dr Ahmed was optimistic that the country would rank among the elite countries by the deadline set by the UN, making her a net exporter of electricity.
He said through the action plan, the country sought to double the rate of improvements in energy efficiency and the share of renewable energy in the country’s energy mix by 2020.
The UN Resident Co-ordinator, Ms Ruby Sandhu-Rojon, said Ghana’s efforts at securing universal energy for all was going to boost the country’s drive to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
She said energy was a critical need to ensure that individuals could go about their daily activities that would boost national development.
She said it was for this reason that the global body had provided financial and technical support for the development of the action plan through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Ms Sandhu-Rojon said Ghana was the first and only country to present its action plan on universal energy for all to the just ended climate change summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Argentina last June.
Source: Daily Graphic