Heated debates, officials who had to face the unleashed fury of many questioners, visitors bursting into tears and nearly every discussion during the three-day West African Clean Energy and Environment Exhibition and Conference (WACEE’15) which was organised by the delegation of the German Industry and Commerce and dealt mainly with long-term renewable energy solutions, came back to the worrying current power situation.
The leading ministers are working around the clock to end the current energy crisis. the Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Akwasi Opong-Fosu, and the Minister for Energy and Petroleum, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, could not join the conference although they originally planned to. Hundreds of Ghanaian energy experts, engineers and businessmen were involved in extensive discussions.
After a vigorous debate about solar energy, Dr Nii Darko Asante, the Director of Technical Regulation of the Ghana Energy Commission (GEC), spoke out clearly:
“In other countries, the people have solar cells on their roof, but here? No! Look at yourselves; you have to change the situation. If you are afraid of the costs, who should pay for that?”
Shift in focus
Even though not everyone might have liked this statement, the shift in focus from just a few huge projects, which might be difficult to finance, to many small projects, maybe also from central to decentralised energy systems, was one of the main aspects of the conference and the exhibition, which contained mainly German technology companies.
“There is too much focus on the big political and economic level, on the government and the huge companies. But also small companies and even private households can use especially solar energy to generate a sufficient amount of electricity. These companies and people are suffering most under the electricity problems, but it is possible that they themselves solve these difficulties,” said Elisabeth Gager, a German renewable energy consultant who visits Ghana several times a year.
Next to solar power, possible energy solutions such as biomass, composting, biogas, organic waste and oil seeds were big topics. Concerning biomass energy, Gifty Tettey from the Directorate of Renewable Energy at the Energy Ministry admitted:
“The major challenge is the inefficient mode of production, transformation and consumption.”
Therefore, most of the participants agreed that Ghana had to increase its efforts.
“Tackling the issue of organic waste and composting to produce energy is a neglected field of the Ghanaian power generation and is, in my opinion, one of the most promising future opportunities,” said Thomas Authmann, Area Sales manager of the German company Doppstadt Calbe.
Warning about false hopes
Hence, do we just need some solar cells on the roofs of Ghanaian households or new strategies of composting and the current power crisis would be over? Ghanaian politicians and experts are warning about false hopes. Even though the foreign companies all announced to act in Ghanaian interest, the scepticism about private developers is high:
“We want to explore all renewable energy sources the way that serves the country best, not the way that serves the foreign developers best,” said Dr Asante.
And Wisdom Ahiataku-Togobo, the Director for Renewable Energy of the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, even went one step further:
“We have plans to go nuclear. So, if we are not able to consider other means, we might use nuclear power from around 2025 onwards,” he said.
Financing the investments
Many visitors did not like the idea of a nuclear future for Ghana and discussed the advantages of solar or biogas power. But who shall pay for the high investment costs of possible renewable energy projects? Several companies presented their ideas about energy loans for small and mid-size projects as well as utility-scale projects with large-scale finance. The German ambassador, Ruediger John, said in an interview with the Daily Graphic:
“Without renewable energies there will be no way out of the Ghanaian energy crisis. The main challenge now is to finance the necessary projects. This financing cannot be done by the state alone. We need more private partnership.”
Certain steps are already taken. On the sides of the conference, French company Total Petroleum announced that it would invest between 80 million and 100 million US dollars in solar energy farms in Ghana.
All in all, three days of meeting, 51 exhibitors, 70 speakers and more than 1500 visitors could obviously not deliver a clear answer to the main question, which every Ghanaian thinks about and discusses at the moment: When will the lights in Ghana be turned on again?
“It will take five to 10 years to implement the renewable energies in Ghana. Before that, the energy crisis cannot be solved, the situation can just be stabilised,” said Patrick Martens, the delegate of the German Industry and Commerce and organiser of the conference, in an interview with the Daily Graphic.
During the three days, the word awareness was used extensively, being presented by several experts as the main condition for future change. For example, last week the University Students Association of Ghana (USAG) called on the authorities for urgent answers to the energy crisis and asked the government for a guaranteed power supply for the universities of Ghana. They said that they could not feel safe on the dark campuses of the country anymore and that most lectures could not take place and researches were nearly impossible.
“These claims are the wrong approach. Especially the state universities should produce their own power. The lecture room could be supplied by solar cells on the roof, the dormitories by biogas digesters,” said Charles Stephens, an engineer, working for a Ghanaian energy conservation company, on behalf of many participants.
Launch of ghanaian renewable energy fair
Thus, is especially solar power the future of the Ghanaian energy supply?
“I guarantee you that in two, or at the latest five years, solar energy will be used extensively in Ghana. There is just no other way,” said Fabian Jochem, Head of Hybrid Hubs at SMA Sunbelt Energy Company.
After the conference, the Minister of Power, Dr Kwabena Donkor, disclosed the plan to institutionalise an annual Ghanaian Renewable Energy Fair. Ghanaian renewable energy solutions and ideas will be presented at an extra exhibition hall at the same time as the next WACEE, already having its premiere in November 2015.
