Ghana to become the next African country with highest electricity penetration by 2024

The Deputy Minister of Transport, Hassan Tampuli, has said data available from the World Bank [https://www.data.world bank.org] shows that Ghana is the next country in Africa with the highest electricity penetration.

He stated that government is committed to increasing the figure to 90% by the end of 2024.

In an interaction with journalists during a stakeholder consultation on electric vehicle policy and implementation framework in Accra on Wednesday, August 2, 2023, the deputy transport minister said Ghana’s electricity reserve capacity; hydro, thermal and renewables are more than what other African countries have.

“The next country in Africa with the highest electricity penetration is Ghana. 86.3% nationally and this government is committed to making it 90% by the end of this year and we are looking at universal coverage by the end of 2024,” he said.

Hassan Tampuli added that, “Really and truly, our reserve capacity is way more than a lot of countries even in Africa…A lot of these countries; Burkina Faso has 19% penetration, Liberia 29%, Niger 18.6% and so on and so forth. The closest you have is Côte d’Ivoire which is 71.1% so we have enough. Sometimes we don’t realize what we have in this country until we compare with other countries.”

“Almighty Rwanda is 48.7% and we sometimes hail Rwanda as the big boy of Africa but we have way more so we have more in terms of electricity capacity, hydro, thermal and renewables put together,” he stated.

To decarbonize the transport sector in line with global commitments and the National Energy Transition Plan 2022, government, through the Ministry of Transport has developed a draft policy on Electric Vehicles (EV).

This policy aims at putting standards, guidelines and operating mechanisms in place to manage the use of electric vehicles in the country.

The Deputy Minister of Transport noted that electric vehicles will soon penetrate the Ghanaian market, therefore, Ghanaians must brace themselves up for it.

“A number of them are already in town, we do not have a policy yet so it’s very crucial that we run very fast.The electric vehicles will come whether we like it or not, so we better be prepared for it,” he said.

Mr Hassan Tampuli noted that all vehicles with Internal Combasted Engines (ICE) will not phased out as there is an option for owners to replace their ICE with conventional engines or electric motors which are fueled by rechargeable batteries to power electric vehicles.

ESA/NOQ