Minister commends Chinese gov’t for solar projects

Mr John Abdulai Jinapor, Deputy Minister of Energy and Petroleum has commended the Chinese government for supporting the installation of solar-powered streetlights in some selected streets in the Greater Accra Region.

Mr Jinapor said the project, which cost 1.5 million dollars had increased visibility in the night and at key bus stops as well as improving security at night for commuters in the night.

He said this on Tuesday at the signing ceremony of the 275 solar streetlight project completion certificates in Accra. Mr Jinapor said the Government of Ghana signed an agreement with the China government for the provision of 275 solar-powered streetlights to be installed on some selected roads and bus stops in Accra.

He said the objective of the project is to install 275 solar streetlights to demonstrate the technical and cost effectiveness of solar street lighting of urban roads in the country.

He stressed that the streetlights was to be installed on the Cantonment Road, 2nd and 4th Circular Roads and the Switchback Road starting from Cantonments Post Office to Flagstaff House Traffic light, being undertaken by Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.

Mr Jinapor said work on the project has progressed steadily, adding that, the total solar streetlights installed and commissioned to date is 260, including works for the remaining 15 systems, representing a total of 99 per cent overall achievement as of August 1, 2014.

He said the contract was sign in October 2012 and expected to end in June 2013 but the end date elapsed due to challenges encountered during implementation, such as underground and overhead utility lines within agreed corridors and vegetative covers on the road corridors.

Ms Sun Boahong, the Ambassador of China to Ghana congratulated Huawei Technologies for the installation of the project using clean and renewable energy and displaying the advanced technology of no cable underground for the streetlights to set up easily and work automatically.

Ambassador Boahong said the project is to implement one of the measures coming out of the 4th Ministerial Conference of Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, which aims at strengthening the development and utilization of clean energy with African countries.

She added that the project marks another gratifying achievement on China-Ghana cooperation stressing that the trade volume between the two countries hit 5.15 billion dollars in 2013.

The Ambassador said the Chinese Hanergy Group would soon invest in a large-scale power plant in the Northern Region and build a clean coal power plant in future.