Ghana’s renewable energy resource waiting to be tapped

The Daily Graphic on Tuesday, June 11, 2013 on page 13 had an article titled ‘Ghana’s renewable energy resource waiting to be tapped.’ I must say, I not a fan of  the Daily Graphic because of it boring stories  of bore holes or some three classrooms commissioning  or some MP or DCE or Politician are echoing the cry of the masses forgetting they have been put in office to solve that.

This  article was in reaction to the call for increase in utility rates, which to me is very typical of the Ghanaian official who does not want to think creatively or strategically so always take the easy way ‘let’s increase tariff or borrow more money’.

 The article talked about how we can harness the wind  at the Volta Basin which peaks at the western region  from the central region 

"Installing wind turbines to use in this corridor will utilize the wind energy and consequently, reduce the wind force that induced the tidal waves around Ada and keta”

The article went on to give details as to how a standard wind turbine could generate 3 mega watts of energy per unit, meaning we could generate 29,700 mega watts of energy at all times. Imagine that?

The Aboso Glass Factory could be used to build fibre glass turbines for the wind mills and other products, creating jobs for the community. The factory will need less than 2 mega watts of energy for it production meaning it will require just one  of the wind mills.

The icing on the cake was when it said

“Colonel Jackson, is a renowned Ghanaian inventor of international repute and a member of CTED, UN Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate, was presently working to patent a new type of wind turbine which is more efficient than the existing ones” 

Whew! By this time I was jumping, I couldn’t stand.

Then it went on to say “channeling the wind energy in the Volta Basin for electric power generation will help us kill two birds with  one stone" (now that is something the former communication minister knows something about):

• ·         Minimizing the menace of tidal waves and increase our renewable energy resource,
• ·         Help us phrasing  out our thermal plants and also control the release of water from our hydropower stations into the seas to make more water available for irrigation
• ·         Helping us to distill sea water directly for high quality salt production and also obtain fresh water from the sea.

By this time I was gone, where? I don’t know but I was blown away. Can you imagine what this could do for all those young folks who need some success story to inspired them.? But then I got hit by the hush reality, this is exactly what the CPP has been saying for a long time so why hasn’t Governments heard nor seen the practicality in this and implemented it?

A lot of reasons came to mind, but lately I try not to echo them. Now I am on a new mind set, only speak about the positive things. i.e. solutions. If I don’t see anything good, I keep my mouth shut, why ? well, we all know the problems, we talk about it all the time,so whom am I to tell you again about it you probably you know more than I do.

So this is my solution;

The first thing is to re- activate the Aboso  glass factory,  so I will have to put all the Ghanaian banks together as well as Ghanaian own business that will be interest in investing in the factory with the Government as major financier.( yeah I know I am a bit bias, proudly Ghanaian, yeah !)

Now , I will go see Colonel Jackson about licensing his technology to us at a royalty of 5% of the profit generated for life with guarantee of getting the first option of any further improvement of his invention pertaining to turbine and fibre glass products.

 I know most of you will be shaking your head thinking this is crazy, but ask yourself if we don’t do this and he give his invention to others outside the country we will have to go there in buy and import, meaning we lose twice. i.e.  Increasing our import, weakening our Cedi and also taking the more of the Cedi to buy the products at high price because whether we like it or not, its going to be a hot product and high demand will sky rocket the price. So why not keep it in house and sell to them. Besides we need a few celebrities or millionaires of our own.

I will setup a public company and will put the CPP technical team in charge of training, maintaining and executing the wind mill project. They will have to work with the local technical institutions or KNUST to build up human capacity in that area, if it is not already done. Also the management will be getting 10 pesewas for every one Ghana Cedi profit the company makes. This puts them on their toes and prevent them from running the company down.

Then after 5 years, with act of parliament will have to offload 70% of the ownership to public through the Ghana Stock Exchange. This is to prevent Government officials and foreign hands from getting it below the market price.  This will be after the firm has broken-even or made profit from the initial investment.

Now back to the Glass factory, again as soon as all parties been able to recoup the initial investment with interest the parties involve will have the first offer to buy shares totaling 50%, Government will keep 30% and offload  20% to the public on the Ghana stock exchange. Again Parliament will have to oversee that this is done.

What do you think?