The Executive Secretary of Ghana’s economic and regulator for electricity and water, Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), Dr Ishmael Ackah, has tasked African governments to use tariff setting as a guarantee for investment to attract investors into the continent’s energy value chain.
According to him, investors can only invest in economically viable ventures, so as the economic regulator of electricity in Ghana, they have adopted what he called a cost reflective and transparent tariff regime to ensure that investors recover their investment.
He added that the Commission undertakes quarterly adjustment tariff mechanism which is driven by inflation and interest rates to offer the investor community and consumers the opportunity to assess what goes on in the sector.
Dr Ackah was speaking on the topic: ‘Charting a course for Equitable Energy Transitions on the Continent,’ at the just ended 25th Africa Energy Forum in Nairobi, Kenya.
Dr Ackah said his outfit has ensured that renewable energy sources are run adding that their prices are passed through to protect investments and ensure customers get better service.
“We have implemented several reforms and one of them is the passage of guidelines for the energy sector. This is to ensure that consumers get access to net meters to help them have solar panels and sell some to the national grid when they get excess power.
“All these will help facilitate Ghana’s energy transition agenda,” he stated.
Dr. Ackah said the Commission uses postage stamp tariff to cushion power consumers in the rural to help accelerate socio-economic development in those deprived areas.
He encouraged minigrid and offgrid to meet Ghana’s 13 percent population without access to electricity.
Answering a question about how Ghana is helping women who constitute the majority of the population in the energy value chain, Dr. Ackah noted that women mostly use biomass for cooking stressing that it has health implications too.
He intimated that Ghana’s supply of sustainable energy like solar, LPG and other clean fuels would preserve women’s health and save their time.
The PURC boss also said that governments in Africa ought to intensify the supply of off-grid solutions to help small businesses like hairdressing and small shops to trigger economic development in rural communities.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
