Africa-Press – Ghana. Minister of Energy in Ghana Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh has called on the private sector to participate in the provision of energy services in the West African country.
The Minister said this participation would improve the social and economic wellbeing of the people as well as bridge the developmental gap. He made the comment yesterday in Accra in a speech read on his behalf at the Umoja renewable energy incubator roadshow.
The roadshow brought together energy developers from across the country in order to influence to apply and submit projects by September 4 this year.
The Umoja incubator is a collaboration between Serengeti Energy and Private Financing Advisory Network(PFAN) aimed at giving aspiring renewable energy developers in sub-Sahara Africa the tools needed to access commercial and technical knowledge as well as funding to succeed in their projects.
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According to the Minister for Energy, about 600 million of the continent’s population have no access to electricity: “Umoja Incubator has come at such an opportune time to help derisk the preparatory costs of renewable energy projects on the continent.”
The minister said the continent was rich in energy resources and home to 60% of the best solar resources globally, but Africa was yet to surpass its unenviable 1.3% (8.7GWp) of installed global solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity.
“The development and use of these resources to improve the socioeconomic wellbeing of the people has not progressed satisfactorily. Considering the continent’s average annual population growth rate of 2.5%,” he added.
Prempeh said about 90m people needed to be connected every year for the next 8 years, to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7by 2030 with a corresponding $40billion investment yearly.
He said the International Energy Agency had provided a comprehensive blueprint to connect the remaining 600m Africans between 2022 to 2030, adding that 42% of that population should be connected to the grid, 31% to minigrids and the remaining 27% to off-grid standalone electricity.
In order to achieve the blueprint Prempeh said there was a need to bring private sector investments and innovations into renewable energy facilities to triple the current efforts. The Minister for Energy urged utilities on the continent to be financially viable while calling for commitments from political leadership, development corporations, bilateral and multilateral banks so as to attract high-quality investments into the electricity sector, particularly renewable energy.
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“The roles of the private sector in the implementation of these projects cannot be overemphasised. I see Umoja Incubator playing a pivotal role in supporting private sector actors to package their proposals, business plans and concepts to secure the needed financing to participate in these and many other flagship renewable energy projects on the continent,” said Prempeh.
Business Development Manager, West Africa for Serengeti Energy, Amadou Lamine Ndour, urged the developers to apply and submit their projects by September 4 2022.
He explained that as part of the process, projects would be evaluated to determine its eligibility for the programme and shortlisted applicants would later be invited to participate at a physical workshop in Cape Town, South Africa.
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