UE/R: TOWNHALL MEETING ON NEW ENERGY EFFECIENCY REGULATION – ENERGY COMMISSION

By Raymond Batasia Wegwi

The Energy Commission of Ghana has organized a Townhall meeting with stakeholders in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region,to create more awareness of its activities as a regulator  especially with the energy efficiency electrical appliances new regulations law passed by parliament to provide the minimum energy performance standards for all electrical appliances in the country, which will go a long way to help consumers get durable and energy efficiency electrical appliances in the country to save some money in their pockets . Mr. Gyimah Mohammad of ministry of environment, science, technology and innovation, who started the conversation, said there’s a very big correlation between human activities and climate change such as  organic waste dumping, industrial plants emissions, bad farming practices and others which are negatively impactful on the climate change, resulting to a lot of health issues, agricultural problems, energy, and infrastructure damages. According to him those ‘vampire appliances’ as the call them, consumes up to 50%of our energy therefore putting more pressure on our energy generation plants to generate a double of that in other to meet their demand and in so doing the thermal plants produces more tonnes of Co2 to the atmosphere adding that, all these are a drain in government coffers and households disposable income and call for a change by buying energy efficient electrical appliances certified by energy commission .

Mr. Richard Donkor from the energy commission and the coordinator of the Townhall meeting who took the participants through energy efficiency, conservation and management, said going for the energy efficient electrical appliances is always the best despite the initial high cost, and with appreciate handling and routine maintenance, you will save a lot of money for other things. According to him all these will enhance national economy by reducing energy bills, lowering investments in energy infrastructure, enhancing consumers welfare and also meeting climate change goals and we must therefore think, act and save our resources and therefore advised individuals and institutions to establish energy efficiency Manager in their homes and workplaces to always monitor, control and save their energy consumption to also save them money.

The assistant manager of energy commission, Mr Hubert Nsoh Zan who talked about the existing energy regulation, achievements and challenges, said the initial laws, LI 1815(2005) as well  others were deficient in enforcing the current appliances because of technological advancement compared with the requirements in the old regulation. The new regulations will therefore focus electrical appliances meeting the minimum  energy performance standards (MEPS)  and also empowering the enforcement authorities  to do effective market surveillance . According to him this has enabled them to also installed cameras in the ports which resulted in a drastical reduction in the importation of uncertified energy efficiency electrical appliances to the country therefore saved the country about $1milion dollars in electricity bills from the year 2013 to 2020 and apart from that,their exchange of CFLs bulbs and old fridges for  LEDs bulbs and new fridges program has reduced those energy consuming appliances in the country which are monumental achievements. Mr. Zan however said unscrupulous people’s interference,inadequate collaboration, market surveillance and others are  the challenges facing their  operations and that has necessitated for the Townhall meetings with stakeholders to create awareness and effective collaboration. He said in all of this the regulation is seeking to protect ghanaians and called on them to look for energy efficiency labelled electrical appliances to buy and if in doubt,the should download the  GH appliances app or the QR code to use  to verify the labels and their slogan is NO LABEL NO GOOD and therefore  appealed to the media to help in the awareness advocacy. The officials of PURC who were one of the stakeholders as a  tariffs regulator,took the participants through the calculations of their tariffs and how to conserve energy and save money. The participants were drawn from the energy commission, ministry of environment, science technology and innovation, the security services, dealers and repairers of electrical appliances,PURC, media and others.