Ministry launches safe Energy Campaign

The Minister of Energy and Petroleum, Mr Armah Kofi Buah, has empathised with businesses and individuals grappling with the ongoing load-shedding exercise and given an assurance that the ministry has put in place the necessary mechanisms that will help stabilise the situation between now and early next year.

"We think that the power crisis is very painful and we share with the people of Ghana in that pain. We are aware that businesses are struggling because of the crisis but the assurance is that there is a lot we are doing to address it," Mr Buah, who has come under attack over the worsening energy crisis, said at the launch of the ministry's Safe Energy Campaign in Accra.

The measures, he said, included the generation of an additional 700 megawatts of power that would be available between now and June next year.

Of the expected 700MW, Mr Buah said about 300MW would be ready in March next year, while the remaining 450MW, which is expected to come from an emergency power badge from Turkey, would be ready in July 2015.

These measures, which he described as short-term relief measures, would add to ongoing projects aimed at bringing national supply of power up to speed with demand.

Conserve energy 

The minister appealed to consumers to save power by switching off gadgets they might not be using to help cut down their individual electricity bills, save power and by extension the environment.

The Safe Energy Campaign is part of ongoing efforts aimed at ensuring judicious use of electricity, of which active demand has outstripped supply, resulting in the current erratic power supply to industries, businesses and households.

Data from the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum (MoEP) show that national electricity demand peaked at 2,200MW this year and that translated into a shortfall of between 200MW and 400 per a day.

Mr Buah emphasised that the shortfall, however huge, could be bridged if Ghanaians cultivated the habit of saving power.

"What the ministry and the Ghana Energy Commission (GEC) is saying is that we Ghanaians have it within our power to minimise this load shedding that we are facing. We can collectively save about 200MW of power if we become conservative in our use of power," the minister said, quoting data from the GEC.  

20% of energy wasted

The GEC, which regulates the power industry, currently estimates that about 20 per cent (translating into about 200MW) of national electricity is wasted through unnecessary usage and consumption by aged and high power consuming appliances, among others.

The figure was 30 per cent but dropped to the current one after series of energy saving initiatives were undertaken by the ministry and the commission during the World Cup Tournament in June this year. 

"What we know is that if you save energy, your electricity bill will reduce drastically; the emissions from energy will come down and by that we will be protecting the environment and you will be conserving power and that will free energy for industries to use and operate," the minister said at the launch which was graced by people in Showbiz, including Kalybos of the 'Boys Kasa' comedy series fame.

As part of the campaign, Mr Buah said the ministry had distributed about 10,000 books on how to conserve energy and the essence of the practice nationwide was to help educate people on the need to use electricity judiciously.

It would also feature public campaigns and advertisements on why Ghanaians should conserve power in homes, offices and schools, he added.