Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia has promised to add 2,000 MW of solar power to Ghana’s energy mix should he be elected the next president in the 7 December 2024 elections.
The flagbearer of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) is hopeful that move will help Ghanaian businesses to be more competitive.
Currently, the high cost of electricity is driven by the cost of fuel and forex rates.
In an interaction with the clergy in the Volta Region, Dr Bawumia said going green would help the situation.
“To reduce the cost of living is to look at our power generation”, he noted, adding: “Ghana currently relies a lot on oil and gas to generate power and if you look at their costs, they are quite high, so, anytime the prices move up in the Middle East, fuel, electricity, and transport prices also move up and, so, I want us to move away from oil and gas to solar power”.
“It is the key for us in the generation of electricity”, Dr Bawumia noted.
He explained: “My goal and the goal that I have stated is that in the next four years, Ghana should add 2,000 megawatts of solar power to the generation of power and that is more than half of our consumption of electricity and, so, combine that with Akosombo and you would nearly reduce the cost of power by nearly 50 per cent and that will give our businesses a competitive advantage.”