Deputy Minister for Energy Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam has called for the reversal of imbalances in the movement of capital for renewable energy investments between Africa and the rest of the World.
Dr. Adam who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Karaga made the call when he led a Ghanaian delegation to the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
He observed that global average levelised cost of utility scale solar has declined by 85% between 2010 and 2020.
However, Dr. Adam decried that Africa is yet to benefit from this development because investors continue to avoid the continent due to perceived market risks.
He indicated that such perceptions were not fair as the regulatory environment had improved in many African countries.
Dr. Adam illustrated that many African countries had passed legislations that provided incentive support such as obligatory purchase clauses, Feed-in-Tariffs and competitive procurement of renewable energy projects.
He therefore encouraged IRENA to conduct market risks assessments in different African countries to guide the decision of investors rather than leave them to classify Africa as a group not being investor friendly.
Dr Adam also invited IRENA to prioritize Africa in the implementation of the Agency’s Climate Invest Platform and ETAF to ensure that investment in renewable energy is scaled up.
He cited many investment opportunities in Ghana, highlighting that Ghana is a host to the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area; and therefore investors could leverage the country as the gate way to the African markets.
Dr. Adam invited investors to establish factories in Ghana to produce renewable energy technologies and export to the African markets duty-free.
He also underscored the role Ghana plays in the sub-regional energy market, which exports electricity to Togo, Benin and Burkina Faso.
The Deputy Energy Minister explained that there was the need for investors to support these efforts by investing in grid expansion to enable the evacuation of more solar energy and thereby help decarbonize energy exports.
Dr. Adam praised the Minister for Energy, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh for setting up the National Energy Transition Committee and appealed to IRENA to support Ghana to develop and implement a long-term transition strategy towards a net-zero future.
