The Deputy Minister of Energy and Green Transition, Richard Gyan-Mensah, has called private energy sector partners to collaborate with government in driving the country’s energy transition.
The Deputy Minister in a speech delivered on his behalf by the Technical Advisor at the Ministry of Energy and Green Transition, Dr Ishmael Ackah, stressed that government alone cannot work to achieve a just energy transition.
Mr Gyan-Mensah affirmed that the energy transition is necessary for both environmental and economic reasons, and would need inputs from energy experts and conferences to make informed decisions to help the country attain an environmentally sustainable energy transition.
He was speaking at the International cConference on the Political Economy of Just Energy Transitions and Inequality in Africa organised by the Centre for Social Policy Studies (CSPS) at the University of Ghana with funding and support from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) and Oxfam Ghana in Accra last Monday (March 30).
Government vision
The Deputy Minister indicated that, although the country currently enjoys an electricity access rate of almost 90 per cent, a significant milestone, yet some Ghanaians still remain ‘unelectrified’.
He affirmed that, government is resolutely committed to closing this gap by 2030, by harnessing the country’s hydro and natural gas resources.
“Until a decade ago, Ghana’s power sector was hydro-dominated. We therefore saw the energy transition as both an economic question, that is, using domestic resources optimally to generate electricity, and as a long-term strategy to reduce import dependency and improve our energy security,” he said.
With 55 per cent of Ghanaians currently relying on solid fuels, which causes significant health and environmental impacts, Mr Gyan-Mensah said, the clean cooking challenge also remained a national priority.
To address clean cooking access issues, he said government is implementing several strategies including the establishment of Renewable Energy and Green Transition Fund, which aligns with the Renewable Energy Act.
He added, the vision of the fund is to “support research and development of domestically produced green technologies, solar panels for chip manufacturing, electric vehicle charging systems, solar-powered irrigation facilities, hospitals, and public schools, including universities and small to medium-sized enterprises, as well as energy efficiency education” among others.
The Deputy Energy Minister added that the fund would help enhance the green credentials by encouraging investments in renewable energy and supporting the development of green technologies locally as well as help lower electricity tariffs for state institutions while freeing up grid-connected power for productive and industrial purposes to create jobs.
Africa concern
The Director of CSPS, Prof. Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai said the African continent, despite contributing least to climate change, bears the brunt of its impact, and remains on the periphery of global energy transition discussions.
Prof. Abdulai affirmed that, Africa must explore its renewable energy potential and utilise oil revenues to drive a just transition, lest it falls behind in the global shift towards greener energy.
He raised critical questions on who bears the cost of transition, who benefits, and what policies would engender growth, further asserting that the war ongoing in the Middle East which has affected fuel prices gives a rife indication that African countries, especially take advantage of their energy resources and transition to environmentally sustainable energy.
“What we are witnessing globally just tells us very clearly that countries must significantly kind of begin to look within because we are at a point in history when almost every country is actually focusing on its domestic front.
“What that means is that as Africans, and if we take our own country into account in particular, one of the concerns that people have raised is the question of the pace of the transition because many African countries actually happen to have only discovered oil quite recently, and there are struggles,” he said.
Source:
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