Search

Abstract: The need to secure future energy in the forms of electricity and modern cooking fuels is recognized as critical to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, particularly poverty reduction, ensuring improved education, health, water supply and environmental sustainability. This paper presents a review of the trends, policies, plans and programmes for increasing energy access in Ghana with primary focus on electricity, cooking fuels and renewable energy. The paper argues that even though governments over the years have had the provision of energy services high on the national development agenda, past and existing policies and plans have not delivered effective results to accelerate energy access, especially in the rural and peri-urban areas where the services are badly needed. The paper therefore calls for a coherent national energy policy with inputs from a wider section of the public that has precise targets and clearly laid down strategies, including financing mechanisms to achieve the targets. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Limited fossil resources, the continuous increment in fuel prices and severe environmental problems require new sustainable electricity generation options, which utilize renewable energies. Solar photovoltaic generation is a proven renewable energy technology and has the potential to become cost-effective in the future, for it produces electricity from the solar radiation. In Ghana, the electricity demand is rapidly increasing at a rate of 10% annually. In the attempt to change the conventional energy intensive economical development and its negative impact on the environment, the government has begun to support the development of the solar photovoltaic technology strongly. In this paper, the state of solar photovoltaic, the challenges facing the industry, the potential of the technology, the policies and strategies to promote development of the technology have been presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]