Ghana urgently needs to push up efficiency in electric power generation if gains in carbon reductions in recent years are not to be undermined, the Energy Commission (EC) has said.
The EC’s Head of Energy Efficiency and Climate Change, Mr. Kofi Agyarko, told B&FT that high economic growth rates exceeding six percent chalked up by the country over the past half decade have escalated demand for electric energy, prompting fresh investments in power generation.
“With the on-going construction of the 400MW Bui dam, the country has exhausted its sources of hydro-generation, except for a few mini-hydros — and new investments are largely in thermal plants, which are not as environmentally friendly as the hydro-dams,” Agyarko said.
The country has since 2007 invested heavily in thermal plants to generate electricity following a debilitating energy supply crunch attributed to persistent droughts in the early 2000s, which in turn have been attributed to climate change.
Ghana’s current peak hour energy demand is estimated at just above 2,000MW and is met by supplies from 60 percent hydro and 40 percent thermal sources.
In the next half-decade energy demand is expected to double to about 4,000MW, and almost all the additional generation capacity is expected to come from thermal sources — which are at present largely fuelled by light crude oil.
“Thermal generation increases carbon and heat emissions which contribute to global warming, and that is where we should enforce efficiency.
“We must as a country insist on combined cycle thermal plants, which are capable of trapping heat generated by the plants and further utilising that to turn turbines to generate more electricity — thereby increasing electricity output for any given amount of crude used,” Agyarko said, adding that investments should be encouraged more in natural gas-fired plants since they emit less CO2 than their crude-fired counterparts.
Hitherto, the country’s efforts at energy conservation and energy efficiency have largely been on the demand side.
Following the 2007 energy crisis, the EC introduced an energy-use efficiency programme that saw the Commission strictly enforcing a law banning importation and distribution of highly inefficient incandescent electric bulbs, while concurrently swapping such bulbs in use with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) estimated to be 400 times more efficient.
Statistics from the EC indicate that the exercise resulted in a peak-load reduction of 124 MW in the first and subsequent years; translating into 116,000 tonnes of CO2 reduction and a saving of US$38,558million.
Encouraged by the outcome, the EC has extended the exercise to cover used refrigerators and air-conditioners.
At present the country is in the final stages of implementing a regime of standardising and labelling refrigerators and air-conditioners to ensure that only efficient appliances are imported into Ghana.
From January 2013, the EC expects to fully implement the ban on importation of used refrigerators and air-conditioners, which are banned in Europe and other advanced countries because they contain chlorofluorocarbons which are notorious for depleting the ozone layer and contributing to global warming.
The EC now estimates that implementation of standards and labelling on refrigeration appliances would save the country over US$100million annually, in addition to reducing of greenhouse gasses.
Mr. Kofi Wayo, a Board member of the EC, said the EC’s insistence on standards and labelling is also to ensure that cheap products and their associated high energy consumption — which is a drain on the grid and the economy — is removed.
By Emmanuel KWABLAH
