ABL, Empower Playgrounds provide solar power to school

Accra Brewery Limited (ABL) has partnered an NGO, Empower Playgrounds Limited, to provide renewable energy (solar power) at the Obosono District Assembly Basic School in the Eastern Region.

The project, commissioned on October 16, 2019, will provide the pupils with electricity and clean energy.

With this partnership, a merry-go-round play equipment has been installed at the school to generate energy as the pupils ride on it.

The solar generated power will then supply the school with electricity for their classrooms and charge durable LED lanterns for the pupils to use for studying and completing their assignments.

In addition, the students have been provided with science kits to use for their school projects.

The play equipment is connected to a charging station which has a charging box, battery, charge controller and a 150W solar panel.

 Merry-go-round installed at the school 

Purpose of project

Touching on the aim of the project, the Legal and Corporate Affairs Director of ABL, Ms Adwoa Aaba Arthur, stated that “we expect that as a result of this project, it will enhance the education of the pupils, increase enrolment at the school, encourage dedicated and committed teachers to teach the students and provide improved education to the children, which would in turn increase the population of the Obosono community”.

Ms Arthur also mentioned that “as a proud part of ABInBev, the world’s largest brewer, our 2025 Sustainability Goals are Smart Agriculture, Water Stewardship, Circular

Packaging and Climate Action which are derived from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”.

She said the project would support the UN SDG 7 on Affordable and Clean Energy by 2030 as well as SDG Goal 4 on Quality Education.

“All of our initiatives as a business is to support the UN’s global agenda on improving conditions of the world’s deprived population,” she stated.

Since 2015, Empower Playgrounds Limited has installed several power-generating merry-go-round play equipment at approximately 50 rural schools in Ghana.

“This is extremely significant to about 1.2 million Ghanaian households which do not have electricity and use biomass (wood fuel) and kerosene lamps as their source of energy.

We believe that this partnership will also help ABL achieve its Better World Agenda of a growing world where everyone has the opportunity to improve their livelihood”.

 ABL, Empower Playgrounds with teachers, students and guests at the event

Sustainability

At ABL, one of our 2025 Sustainability Goals is to ensure that 100 per cent of purchased electricity will be from renewable energy sources, Ms Arthur stated, adding that ABL would undertake more sustainability projects in order to improve the livelihood of people in the Ghanaian community as well as help achieve the UN SDGs.

Although she noted that solar paneling was expensive, she said that partnering NGOs made it fairly affordable, and encouraged the private sector to partner organisations to provide solar powered energy to communities without electricity.

“This is a good initiative for other private companies to collaborate to help improve education in rural communities with affordable renewable energy solutions,” she said

Ghana’s Development

The current access rate to electricity in Ghana is estimated at 83 per cent, with 91 per cent in urban areas only and 50 per cent in rural communities. Biomass (wood fuel) continues to meet more than 60 per cent of Ghana’s total energy needs.

As such, ABL is implementing this project in order to contribute towards providing clean and safe energy to people in rural communities.

“ABL will not stop here, we will continue to partner Empower Playgrounds Limited to provide renewable energy solutions to other schools in rural communities in other parts of Ghana.Also, our next focus is to implement a sustainable project to recycle our plastic (PET) bottles. Our goal is to support the global effort and our government’s decision to rid our communities and beaches of plastic waste by recycling plastic bottles.
Furthermore, ABL is planning to implement a programme where we will improve the lives of farmers we locally source our raw materials from,” Ms Arthur said.

The students and teachers of the Obosono District Assembly Basic School were given refreshments of the ABL’s non-alcoholic beverage, Beta Malt.