Government to double renewable energy generation by 2030 - Bawumia hints

Vice president Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has said government is determined to double the current renewable energy mix in the national grid by the end of 2030.

Currently, Renewable Energy accounts for more than 50% of the country’s energy mix in the national grid, hence the need to double the share of renewable energy in the national energy mix.

This, he explained, the government would achieve in accordance with the Renewable Energy Master Plan.

“The plan will be implemented in three cycles with the first covering the period of 2018 to 2020, whereas the second and third implementation cycle would be 2021-2025 and 2026-2030,” he explained.

The plan, which gives clear strategies for achieving this target, includes promotion of local production of renewable solutions, research and development and capacity building.

Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia said this in a speech read on his behalf by the Deputy Minister for Energy in-charge of Petroleum, Dr Mohammed Amin Adam, at the opening of the 3rd of Ghana Renewable Energy Fair in Accra.

The three-day international conference and exhibition, which is being organized by the Energy Commission, is under the theme: ‘Renewable Energy: An engine for distributed wealth creation’.

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia noted that since Parliament passed the Renewable Energy Act 2011, Act 832, the Energy Commission has granted close to 100 provisional licences, adding that ECG has also signed a number of power purchase agreements.

However, he said, only 2 Renewable Energy plants have been constructed and are currently supplying power to ECG.

“A number of challenges constraints the actual realization of renewable energy power plants,” he stated.

According to him, the Ministry of Energy has identified some of the constraints in the Act 832 and is, therefore, in the process of addressing them by amending the Act. The amendment, he said, would allow inclusion of competitive procurement of renewable electricity as a provision in the Act.

As part of government’s policy to promote the use of solar systems, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia said government is developing a comprehensive public private sector led strategy to aggressively promote the deployment of solar in public establishment.

This would increase the Renewable Energy installed capacity and ameliorate the financial health of the utilities which are saddled with unpaid bills partly by public establishments.

Touching on steps government is taking to protect the country’s forest belt, he said, “Government is now promoting woodlots plantation for the production of charcoal rather than cutting down trees in forest reserves for charcoal production for export. We will tighten regulations for firewood and charcoal production particularly for export”.