Ghana’s energy crisis: The small things contributing to the big problem (pg 10)

It was one of those hot days in January when you wish you could walk through town shirtless.  I had given up my Saturday nap because ECG power outage had visited unannounced.  The ECG has now become notorious for paying unexpected visits, now known as “dum sor dum sor.” 

Instead of being home and battling the heat, I decided to go window shopping, nothing but feasting my eyes on electronic goods that could dig a big hole in one’s monthly salary. My Play Station had given up the ghost long ago, but its replacement is now a tale of calculations.

I started from Melcom Plus at the Industrial Area. After roaming the entire shopping centre, I walked out triumphantly with a nail cutter. For an impulse buyer, that is a major victory. From there, the Samsung electronics shop near the Kwame Nkrumah Circle was the next destination.

The place was a buzz. Dozens of customers or probably window shoppers like me were asking questions and buying little. Here, I avoided the temptation of looking at the promotional flyers—I was winning the no-impulse- buying game.

I stepped out of the shop with a satisfied grin. I saw the washing machine I have been dreaming about but the price could knock a few zeros off my account; I wasn’t willing to do that now. Outside, the heat that hit me nearly sent me back to the shop. The time was 2 p.m. and going back home that early to meet a hot house was a nonstarter.

After a long debate in my mind, taking a stroll through the Kwame Nkrumah Circle won. I soon forgot the heat as I buried myself in the soul food—music streaming from my phone.

Something struck me by the time I reached the Tip Toe Lane. I counted more than 30 bulbs in front of shops.  This observation pushed my curiosity to another level. I wanted to see how wide spread the situation was, given the difficult situation the country finds itself in—energy wise.

Throughout the chain of shops close to the overpass and the Vodafone offices at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, I counted not less than 50 bulbs on. Angered and frustrated by the display of irresponsibility, I jokingly asked one of the shop owners whether the sun was not enough to brighten his shop. The response was both shocking and annoying.

Hear him: “I have not put this bulb off for the last three months. I pay my bill, that is the most important thing. Why don’t you ask the ECG why they don’t put off the street light?”

A strret light in Accra on at 3pm

That question sums up our attitude towards energy conservation. For a country struggling to cope with energy crunch, I was expecting that people would conserve the little that comes to them but no, that is not the case.

My neighbour travelled for two weeks and left his fridge on for those two weeks. When he returned, the power fluctuations had done a nice job of “killing” the fridge. His verbal missiles aimed at the ECG but which struck me would give any official of the company a heart attack.

When I asked him why he would leave his fridge on for two weeks when he was not around, he answered, “What has that got to do with my spoilt fridge and the food in it?”

Apparently, the eight-month old energy crisis which started last year and its attendant problems have no thought us any lesson.  Neither has the load shedding in 1997, 2004 …served any useful purpose in influencing attitude change on the part of the ordinary Ghanaian and that action of policy makers.

Walk and drive through any area in Ghana and you’re likely to see rows of streets light on during the day. I have seen this in Ningo, Prampram and Accra in the Greater Accra Region; Aflao and Denu in the Volta Region; Sampa in the Brong Ahafo Region and some areas in the Western Region that did not register in my mind.

I have also seen an emerging trend in the building and construction industry. We continue to build structures with small windows. “What is the problem with that?” a colleague asked when I was discussing the energy crisis with him.

 The answer is simple. Those small windows mean more energy will be required to cool those houses—air-condition in addition to the fact that there would be no maximum use of daylight. Sometimes one wonders if the Town and Country Planning department is still alive.

Then there is the problem with all these old electronic goods from refrigerators, microwaves, toasters, irons, washing machines to television sets that are allowed into the country.

I am not an energy expert, but I can bet my last pesewa on the fact that most of those items have outlived their usefulness as far as energy consumption is concerned yet they are allowed here.

In November last year, I was chatting with a friend who lives in the US when I told her that my laptop would go off in 10 minutes. Her next question was “why don’t you plug it in?” I told her my light was off. She sent me that annoying laughter and said “Whaaaaat? What happened to solar energy?”

That is exactly the question I ask when I hear politicians outdoing one another with who connected more communities to the national grid. Of what use is the connection to the national grid when there is no power or when the available power turns our homes into a discotheque.

I feel ashamed that in a country where the sun shines well over 300 days in a year, we have not been able to make much use of it.  Why not provide solar energy for all these rural communities whose most sophisticated gadgets are mostly bulb, fan and a TV?

More than denying us electricity in our home, offices and factories, the current energy crisis is biting hard on jobs. A friend’s mother is complaining bitterly about the cost of energy for her cold store. Very soon, she may have to shut down the business and send home the two people working for her.

In an article titled “Promoting energy efficiency in Ghana: Challenges and strategies,” Leslie Nsakie-Kassim, a building services engineer, touched on something that is at the heart of the energy conservation challenge in Ghana.

“One of the major drawbacks to the promotion of energy efficiency happens to be the current government subsidies in the energy sector. Huge subsidies, particularly on electricity and petroleum products, have given Ghanaians a false understanding of the true cost of energy.”

He continued that “to make the fight for energy efficiency more effective, government subsidies will have to be abolished. Protecting the poor from the stress of high energy cost is indeed a legitimate concern. There are, however, more effective means of achieving such welfare policies.

“These subsidies can be channelled into paying a bonus to households who can significantly reduce their energy consumption over a certain period of time, say a month. Government can alternatively provide discounts on the retail price of energy efficient equipment and gadgets like is currently being done with the CFLs (energy bulbs).”

At this period, I expected the Energy Commission to be up and doing about education on energy conservation but the only sign of anything close to that is the new fridges for old ones television ads.

That is simply inadequate.  If you have say about 10,000 streetlights, two million light bulbs in homes and shops on when they should be off daily, the blow it deals to the energy situation needs not be spelt out.  Over to you, Energy Commission.