Ghana needs energy conservation strategies — Joy

An Independent presidential candidate for the 2012 election, Mr Jacob Osei Yeboah (JOY), has advised the government to focus on energy efficiency and conservation strategies to make the country energy sufficient.

Energy conservation refers to reducing energy consumption by eliminating waste and using less of energy services. 

Ghana’s power crisis currently has been attributed mainly to low power generation capacity by the energy ministry. 

According to the independent presidential candidate, there was no clear justification for the procurement of 450MW emergency plant by the Ministry of Energy, since the country loses over 40 per cent of power generated through wastage.

Speaking on” Energy conservation: Ghana’s path to sustainable energy availability,” Mr Yeboah recalled that Ghana in August 2007 introduced the Compact Florescent Lamps (CFL), which conserved 124MW of energy with an annual savings of US$33m . 

He told the Daily Graphic  that putting lights and fridges off during the World Cup in Brasil  formed part of an energy conservation strategy. 

“ It is, therefore, logical that Ghana explores how to conserve energy from these home appliances without necessarily inconveniencing consumers. The implementation of conservation policy by use of technology can make energy available for other uses. This is where the energy ministry can reduce drastically domestic consumption,” he stated.

Mr Yeboah stated that ‘’even though conventional thinking accepts the fact that we normally need a higher generation in order to meet demand, energy conservationists hardly accept this simplistic phenomenon. 

“The other fundamental question is generating power at what cost? The affordability by consumers and the country’s power competitiveness to industries are prime determinants of energy policy direction.’’ 

Energy generation mix Mr Yeboah said it was highly disincentive for the Energy Ministry to crave for more generation at 40 per cent losses without recourse to investing in efficiency and conservation of energy. 

“Knowing the prospect for energy, one can conclude that the government must therefore concentrate on the niche of energy efficiency and conservation with biogas generation,” he stated.

Mr Yeboah said it was quite disturbing that the Energy Ministry was using the gas find for power generation mostly.

He said gas could be depleted, even though  it was the resource in the petroleum industry that could truly catapult the country into industrialisation. 

Mr Yeboah , therefore, suggested that the gas policy must be categorical on using 50 per cent of gas for power generation and 50 per cent for agrarian, industrial and other uses. He added that renewable energy generation mix was more sustainable for Ghana.

“Renewable Energy, as asserted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, has the ability to lift poorest countries to high levels of prosperity,’’ Mr Yeboah agreed.

 The current sanitation problems in the country, Mr Yeboah said,  made  biogas a very key energy generation policy, an option to be adopted urgently, since it could solve sanitation and power generation problems at a very affordable price for domestic heating and lighting purposes.

 He said other  renewable sources of energy that the country  needed to look at were wind and solar, since a solar residential policy framework could go a long way to augment residential power requirement.

Mr Yeboah also argued  that Ghana could  frame a policy on industrial working cycle and home power uses respectively such that the peak demand could be optimised.