The introduction of drive electric initiative in the country will be one of the major climate mitigation programmes ever to be rolled out in Ghana.
It will also help create the demand for the current excess electricity generation capacity of the country, Mr Seth Mahu, Deputy Director, Renewable Energy, Ministry of Energy, has disclosed.
Drive electric, is an initiative by the government to reduce significantly petrol, diesel and liquefied petroleum gas powered vehicles and introduce electric powered vehicles, which are charged by plugging the vehicle into charging equipment powered by the electric grid or standalone renewable enegy generation sources.
Throwing more light on the need to support the switch from petrol, diesel and liquefied petroleum fuelled vehicles to electric, Mr Mahu told the Ghana News Agency in an interview that the quality of life of people living in the urban cities would be improved due to the reduction of toxic emissions from tailpipes of diesel and petrol vehicles.
He said the electric drive initiative would cut government bills on health by not paying much to procure medicines to cure emission related diseases.
Mr Mahu stated that scientific studies had shown that one in eight of today’s global deaths was a result of exposure to air pollution – either (outdoor) ambient air pollution (AAP) or (indoor) household air pollution (WHO (2014a, 2014b), jointly causing around 7 million deaths per year.
In the Greater Accra Region, Environmental Protection Agency estimates that in 2015, 2,800 lives were lost due to the effects of air pollution.
Comparatively, Mr Mahu said a Battery Electric Vehicle had fewer moving parts than a conventional petrol and diesel vehicles, which should make electric vehicles cheaper to maintain as servicing is relatively easy and less frequent.
Responding to the question of readiness, Mr Mahu stated that the current grid had enough power to start the drive electric, explaining that as the demand increased the government had put in place a generation master plan and strategies to generate more power to meet the demand.
“By the introduction of the electric drive the power sector will be open to the introduction of cleaner energy sources and its ancillary economic services,” he said.
“If we should start an intra-regional-train system there will be the need for more power to support that sector. This will mean we have to generate more electricity to meet that demand,” he added.
