Ghana must balance gas with renewables for sustainable future – NRGI’s Program Officer

Senior Program Officer for Africa at the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), Dennis Gyeyir, has suggested that Ghana should not overly fixate on gas for power generation amid the country’s energy transition towards achieving Net Zero emissions.

Following Ghana’s decision on energy transition, some key players in the energy sector have responded to this transition.

Speaking at an energy transition forum on Citi TV, Dennis Gyeyir emphasized that while it is essential to utilize available resources, Ghana should consider the global context and not solely focus on fossil fuels.

“Every country has to make use of the resources available at their disposal. But we don’t live in isolation. We live in a global setting where things are moving, and different parts are moving at the same time, and so our caution from the risky bet analysis that we’ve done at NRGI is that over-focus or over-reliance on fossil fuel and its extraction can leave us logged in with funds that could have been used efficiently to generate sustainable sources of power.”

Gyeyir highlighted the need for Ghana to be more adventurous in renewable energy and not become overly fixated on revenue from existing non-renewable sources like oil and gas.

He urged a balanced approach to power generation, emphasizing the abundance of renewable resources such as solar that could be explored.

“We already have money coming from oil, and gas we are using it for power, and it is consuming money. So your petroleum management act, for instance, makes clean energy investments one of the options out of the twelve priority areas that are listed. Why are you not looking at investing in that to balance out the equation? In terms of power generation, our focus should be balanced. We have a lot of renewable energy resources, solar is there. However, we haven’t encouraged much in that sector because we think we have gas,” he said.

Riverson Oppong, the Director of the Society of Petroleum Engineers Society, expressed dissatisfaction with energy security that does not address the availability, accessibility, and affordability of energy.

He stressed that energy security should not only ensure a consistent supply of energy but also consider the ease of access for all consumers and the affordability of energy prices.

“Regardless of this gas argument, I don’t fancy it when any energy security is not addressing 3As; which is the availability of that energy, accessibility of that energy, and affordability of that energy.”

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