Context
Ghana has made significant strides in improving access to electricity with the country enjoying an 82% electrification rate as at 2017. Energy supply is more expensive due to the short-medium term additional conventional power plants installed during the energy crisis era. At the same time, the state-owned electricity distribution companies, ECG and NEDCo are in serious financial situation as end-user tariffs are insufficient to cover high electricity cost.
The public sector consumers pay their electricity bills irregularly or not at all, which endangers the effective management of the state-owned electricity distribution companies as well as reliable electricity supply. The government of Ghana since 2017/2018 has been focusing on debt recovering in the energy sector, particularly in the public institutions – to reduce their electricity consumption and be responsible for payment of electricity usage.
Objective
The prerequisites for the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency solutions by public institutions and private investors are improved.
Approach
The strategy is to build on the achieved impacts of the predecessor project in the area of renewable energy and supplement them with energy efficiency in buildings and expand the scope of intervention from national to the regional and district level.
The project shall advise the Ministry of Energy and other relevant actors on the design of implementing provisions for selected instruments of the amended Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG). At the same time, it supports the government in reducing the electricity costs of public facilities and setting up a system for the certification of buildings through improved energy efficiency in buildings as well as through own generation. This is flanked by training and quality assurance measures for skilled workers.
The project directly targets;
a) Experts and managers from the Ministry of Energy and other responsible authorities such as the Energy Commission,
b) Selected regions and municipalities
c) Suppliers of renewable energy and energy efficiency products and services.