The Energy Minister says there are plans to explore how best government can benefit from renewable energy and go-ahead to export to neighbouring countries.
Energy experts have often called on relevant government agencies to consider making power production attractive for export and they believe Ghana must innovate and make its renewable energy attractive for neighbouring countries.
Although this form of energy is expensive, Representative from the Energy Ministry, Wisdom Ahiataku-Togoboare tells Citi Business News his outfit is looking at available options and opportunities.
“For now, the export of renewable energy is quite expensive. Even the thermal power we have, Togo would like to buy power for less than 10 cents. For instance, they are at the moment buying power form Cote D’lvoire using our network and selling it to Togo, Benin. We could fill in that gap but at what price? You cannot generate crude oil and sell at 10 cents but we are working towards that,” he assured.
He spoke at the commissioning of a 1000KWp off-road solar power system for Special Ice factory at Oyarifa in Accra.
Speaking at the same event, Managing Director of Sunpower Innovations, Ernest Amissah outlined the benefits of the solar power system.
“This is supposed to reduce their energy demand. It is a very good installation and what makes me proud as the CEO of Sunpower is that you don’t see any foreign faces here. We did it all ourselves so the indigenous knowledge is there,” he noted.
Sunpower Innovations have since operations installed more than 7MW of solar power PV capacity and have undertaken major installations at shopping centres, banks, hotels, research institutions, amongst others.
It has also undertaken commercial activities in Nigeria and Sierra Leone.