Political will vital to enhance Ghana’s investment in renewable energy – IES

The Institute for Energy Security (IES) has indicated that sufficient political will is vital to improve Ghana’s investment in renewable energy.

According to Beatrice Annagfio, a fellow at the institute, Ghana needs to be deliberate in setting an ambitious target towards achieving renewable energy status by 2030.

“We hope that even if we should achieve the target by 2030 and I say 2030 because the National Energy Policy of including 10 percent renewable energy was extended from 2020 to 2030, and so if as part of our ambition to make renewable energy part of the energy mix, we say that let’s have a 100% coverage; and we say it should be possible because if you look at Senegal, recently the President, Macky Sall, inaugurated a 158 megawatts wind plant and 2 million people are estimated to benefit from it,” Annagfio told Citi Business News.

“So, I think if Ghana takes the deliberate steps and government begins to have the conversation around renewable energy, we should be able to achieve that target,” she added.

She added Ghana needs to derive lessons from other counterparts like Kenya which is currently foremost in renewable energy sources in Africa.

Meanwhile, Ghana’s National Energy Policy (NEP) target of using renewable energy for 10 percent of total energy production by 2020 was extended to 2030 due to the failure to implement the right policies towards achieving the goal.