President John Mahama
President John Mahama says government has provided provisional licenses for nine organizations to invest in energy generation.
He said demand for energy had reached a point where the private sector would have to complement the efforts of government.
President Mahama made this known during the inauguration of a 2 million-dollar two megawatt-solar power plant at Navrongo in the Upper East Region.
The solar power plant will be expanded to 2.5 megawatts to become the largest in Africa apart from Cape Verde.
Speaking on the theme: “Building sustainable power; the role of renewable energy sources,” President Mahama warned against illegal power connection.
He advised Ghanaians to be watchful and bring people engaged in the practice to book to accelerate energy extension to communities that were yet to be connected.
He also described the inauguration of the first ever solar plant as one that marked the beginning of a new era.
According to him, while government was doing everything possible to reverse the current national electricity load-shedding problem, consumers must learn to conserve energy.
The President also called on citizens to pay realistic costs that would empower the Volta River Authority (VRA) and Electricity Company of Ghana to produce and generate more power.
Government, he said, had distributed more than 10,000 solar lamps to communities that are not connected to the national grid, while more communities would be supplied with the facility to avoid the use of kerosene in the country.
Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah, Minister of Energy and Petroleum, said his outfit had stepped up feasibility studies to provide renewable energy throughout the country to meet the energy needs.
“Our vision to generate 5000 megawatts of electricity by 2016 is on course and the only way to achieve that is to diversify into wind and solar that is less expensive and more reliable in terms of domestic and industrial consumption,” he said.
He gave the assurance that government will step up the generation of solar energy and extend it to basic and tertiary institutions to power their Information and Communication Technology programmes.
The solar power project is in line with the VRA’s plans to focus national policy on renewable energy of wind and solar as the most environmentally friendly methods of electricity generation.
It was initiated in 2010 and aimed at developing 160 megawatts of installed renewable energy capacity over a period of five years and was executed at a cost of eight million dollars and financed by the VRA to improve energy security and diversification.
Apart from providing alternative electricity production, the project will also create jobs in the community and serve as a tourist attraction as it is the first in the country.
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