The Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), the entity implementing for Ghana’s Power Compact II, is to institute three new Sustainable Energy Service Centres (SESCs) in three regions in the West African nation.
This will be done in collaboration with the Energy Commission (EC), the energy sector regulator.
The establishment of the SESCs, which would be the first of such centres in Ghana, forms part of activities under the Energy Efficiency and Demand Side Management (EEDSM) Project, one of four projects in the Ghana Power Compact Programme, being funded by the United States Government through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).
The SESCs would be hosted by three separate consortia of tertiary educational institutions selected through a competitive process.
A statement issued by MiDA mentioned the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UNER), in consortium with the Sunyani Technical University, Kumasi Technical University and the Energy Foundation; Accra Technical University (ATU), in consortium with the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the Center for Renewable Energy, Entrepreneurship and Innovation; Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, as the beneficiaries for the centres.
A study by the consultant to the project, Messrs. Development Environergy Services Limited (DESL), reports that the adoption of energy-efficient systems would result in annual savings estimated at 4000GWh.
This represents over 30 percent of the country’s current energy demand.
It is also estimated that a minimum peak load savings of 500MW can be achieved with the adoption of energy efficiency behaviours, thereby, reducing the need for additional investment in generation capacity.
The statement said through the SESCs, the Energy Commission aims at building capacity in energy auditing.
This would ensure that a core of qualified and certified professionals are available in Ghana to assist public and private institutions, industrial and commercial customers to adopt and implement cost-effective energy savings measures.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com