The Ghana Renewable Energy Fair is the first ever while the West African Clean Energy and Environment (WACEE) Conference and Exhibition is the 4th in a series. The event, which is being held on the theme: "Renewable Energy Technology for Sustainable Development", provides the platform for a thorough exploration of the opportunities and challenges for developing strategies for the effective deployment of renewable energy technologies for sustainable development.

It is being organized by Ghana's Energy Commission (EC), in collaboration with the German Trade Delegation.

In a key note address at the opening of the Conference in Accra, yesterday, the Minister for power, Hon. Dr Kwabena Donkor, pledged government's commitment to accelerating the development of the value chain of renewable energy innovatively.

Dr Donkor noted that renewable energy played a critical role in fighting growing inequality, wiping out extreme poverty and tackling the challenges of climate change, which provided the impetus for sustainable development.

Ghana's Power Minister said Ghana was endowed with significant renewable energy resources that needed to be harnessed to complement the ever-growing energy demand for the sustainable development of the country.

There was, therefore, the need, he said, for a shift in the country's electricity generation from excessive dependency on large hydropower towards other renewable energy technologies which did not produce greenhouse gases.

He said enormous progress had been made in the renewable energy sub-sector which, he said, included the provision of solar home systems and portable lanterns to over 500 Community Health facilities, 800 basic schools and 90,000 homes in remote parts of the country, adding that there were on-going efforts to provide mini-grid power plants to deliver affordable, reliable and sustainable electricity to about half a million Ghanaians living in island communities and along the Volta Lake.

Dr Donkor said the passage of the Renewable Energy Act, 2011 (Act 832) also provided the legal framework for the large-scale deployment of renewable energy technologies in Ghana and resulted in a surge by investors to exploit the country's renewable energy potential.

He said a number of projects, including the Volta River Authority's (VRA's) 2.56 MV grid-connected solar PV system at Navrongo and a 20 MV solar plant constructed by private power producers in the Central region, had already been completed.

Furthermore, he said, VRA was also undertaking feasibility studies to add 12 MV grid-connected solar PV in the Upper West region, another feasibility studies for a 75MW wind park along the eastern coast of the Greater Accra region to generate electricity from wind while a number of Independent Power Producers were also working on several wind, solar and waste energy projects.

In his remarks, the German Ambassador to Ghana, H.E. Ruediger John, disclosed that Renewable Energy was an important part of Germany's development portfolio in Ghana.

Ambassador John, therefore, gave the assurance that Germany would support Ghana in her efforts towards the development of renewable energy, provide solutions to the challenges of energy supply delivery in Ghana and to make energy supply more reliable and sustainable in the country.

He disclosed that the German government, under its 'Renewable Energy Programme', was supporting VRA with 22.8 million Euros to develop a 12 MW Pilot Photovoltaic system in the Upper West region of Ghana.