Kumasi, May 2, GNA – Ghana must develop comprehensive and coherent policies and programmes to position itself to fully take advantage of the revolution in the energy sector globally to produce renewable energies locally for sustained development.
Mr Benjamin Boakye, Executive Director, African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), said the world was making a paradigm shift from oil and gas as forms of energy to development of renewable energy technologies.
“If you look at the growth of renewable energy in recent times and the drive of investment in that space, government of Ghana cannot stop the revolution that is happening, we need to do is to begin asking ourselves what new forms of energy can be developed in Ghana to align with our socio-economic development as a country,” he added.
Mr Boakye made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at Kumasi in the Ashanti Region on the sidelines of a two-day training workshop on Energy Transition organised for selected journalists and Civil Society Organisations.
It was organised by the Natural Resources Governance Institute (NRGI) in collaboration with ACEP.
Countries around the world particularly the Europeans have begun moving away from fossil fuels to de-carbonated form of energy and some have set timelines to ban vehicles and machines which use oil and gas due to emissions with implication on climate change.
This transition has implication for production and sale or oil and gas especially for developing countries like Ghana and therefore called for strategic approach to shift to renewable energy.
The Executive Director explained that Ghana could afford to continue to rely on fossil fuel for accelerated economic development while the world was transiting into new energies and noted that the Energy Transition agenda started by the West was opening up opportunities for the Ghanaian economy to tap into to produce its own energy sources for development.
Mr Boakye explained that although the country had oil deposits that needed to be extracted, it would be prudent to produce the oil and gas, however, the returns in the sector should be invested in the renewable energies to participate in the transition process.
He said Ghana did not have the technology in the production of the oil and gas and had to rely on the West, making them to benefit substantially from the returns the country’s resources.
He said the country needed to look at the local context relative to the emerging technologies and invest strategically, “so that when we talk about panels for solar energy, we are not just importing the panels but we also have the opportunity to play in some components in the development of the panels.”
The Executive Director explained that Ghana was blessed with resources including cassava that had the potential to produce renewable energy and noted supporting farmers to cultivate cassava would not help produce the needed energy but would make available raw materials for industrial us and contribute to ensuring food security.
Mr Denis Gyeyir, West Africa Programmes Manager, NRGI noted that no one was against the continued production of oil and gas as forms of energy in Ghana, however, government needed to assess the risks involved before committing huge resources into the sector.
He said while the production of the oil and gas continued, concrete policies needed to be churned out to to invest in the renewable energies as a back-up.
Ms Nafi Chinery, West Africa Regional Manager, NRGI, said government needed to accept the reality that energy transition was happening.
GNA