Assessing Renewable Energy Use in Ghana: The Case of the Electricity Sector

Abstract

For years, renewable energy access and usage have played significant roles in the development of many nations in the Sub Saharan African (SSA) region. Currently, energy access continues to be the economic engine driving growth in Ghana and its various regions where energy sources, including hydroelectricity power and the generation of electricity form the backbone of the nation’s energy sources. However in the face of changing demographics and development activities sweeping across the country, the demand for renewable energy has grown so much that it is exceeding supply due to rapid population growth, industrial development, and domestic usage among households and others. Meeting the growing needs for electricity in these settings require more energy infrastructure in order to raise current capacity and with that, has come concerns about power outages and limited access to electricity in the country often compounded by physical, environmental and socio-economic factors. Despite ongoing efforts through different initiatives, the problems persist with rising tariffs. At the same time, very little exists in the literature to analyze renewable energy trends in Ghana from a temporal spatial perspective using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and descriptive statistics under mix scale methodology. In the absence of such an approach, formalizing an effective policy with the right support tools for improved access becomes a daunting task. In light of these challenges, this paper will focus on the analysis of renewable energy trends in Ghana with emphasis on the issues, trends, environmental analysis, impacts, factors and efforts in the electricity sector. Regarding methods, the research adopts mix scale techniques of descriptive statistics connected to GIS to map the spatial dimensions of renewable energy use, distribution and the potentials. The results show growing changes in the form of gains and declines in the renewable energy variables from electricity demands to capacity generated while the GIS mappings reveal a gradual dispersion of renewable energy elements spread across the country over time. Added to that, the changes in renewable energy use in Ghana seem not farfetched; they ranged from policy, socio-economic forces and environmental and physical elements. To address these challenges, the paper offered several recommendations; they include the need for more design of energy infrastructure, improved policy, effective monitoring, and regular use of spatial information systems and the design of a national energy information system. The expectation is that this will strengthen current measures towards energy security with improved access.