Green People’s Energy for Africa – Ghana
Green People’s Energy offers citizens in sub-Saharan Africa the innovative technical and financial support to use solar energy in rural areas in order to improve their livelihoods and household income. In nine selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including Ghana, we are promoting the use of solar technologies in agriculture and for the electrification of social institutions in rural areas. Together with private and public partners, we develop sustainable projects, strengthen partnerships between Europe and Africa, and train Africans to deploy solar technology nationwide.
In Ghana, GIZ possesses years of experience in the deployment of solar technologies, which will be leveraged upon to rapidly implement the innovative approaches of Green People’s Energy.
Did you know that…?
… 87% of the population in Ghana has access to electricity? This is one of the highest electrification rates in Africa.
… the power goes out for up to eight hours, several times a week?
… 4 million people, especially in rural areas, still have no access to electricity?
… despite the fact that the average per capita income of around 1,700 Euros per year is relatively high by African standards?
How we work
The initiative Green People’s Energy for Africa builds on successful approaches and implementation structures of existing projects. In Ghana, the measures were planned together with the global project Energising Development (EnDev) – and approaches from EnDev (see Practical Experience) were adopted.
The target groups of the project in rural areas of Ghana are farmers, small enterprises, cooperatives, women’s groups, schools and health stations.
The project offers education and training in solar technology, especially for solar pumping and irrigation systems, and off-grid solar power systems. Training institutes are supported in expanding and professionalising their training programmes. In order to put the acquired knowledge into practice, farmers, cooperatives and small entrepreneurs, as well as schools and health stations are financially supported in the acquisition of solar power systems. In addition, companies are supported in the development of their projects and in mobilising financing from banks and crowdfunding companies.
In the area of promoting framework conditions for investment, Ghanaian project staff advises the technical regulatory authority on the licensing of companies that install solar irrigation systems.
Practical Experience
In Ghana, Green People’s Energy intends to continue the success story of EnDev. During its 3 years tenure, the project supported the installation of 80 solar irrigation pumps in small-scale agriculture until September 2019.
They were procured by small-scale farmers to irrigate their fields all year round. EnDev carried out marketing campaigns together with private local installers and contributed a 33% subsidy. Today, Green People’s Energy is building on these experiences by targeting the double of farmers in the same period of time. The project works with 5 local solar companies, that promote the use of solar water pumps, find their customers, install and maintain the systems. The project secures state-of-the-art quality and provides an incentive of up to 40%. First successes can be seen below.
