Energy generation at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has received a significant boost after the African Forum for Research and Education in Health (AFREhealth) installed a 30-kilowatt solar system at the AFREHealth secretariat, which is situated within the School of Public Health at the university.

The initiative aims to reduce the university’s heavy reliance on the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), which currently costs the university between GHC4.5 million to GHC5 million per month for electricity consumption.

Speaking at the commissioning of the project, Professor Rita Akosua Dickson, the Vice-Chancellor of the University, said that she has directed every college within the institution to allocate a budget for clean and sustainable energy solutions, while also promoting the adoption of renewable energy alternatives.

According to Professor Rita Akosua Dickson, the installation of the solar system by AFREhealth will play a crucial role in achieving this sustainability goal.

“As a leading science and technology university in this country, when it comes to quality education being the best on the globe, we cannot let SDG 7 be lost on us. Renewable energy, green energy, clean energy means a lot to us. Currently, what we are facing as a university when it comes to the bill for the Electricity Company of Ghana alone, it’s unbelievable. It is actually shooting through the roof. We are paying 4.5 to 5 million per month. That is not sustainable at all. We believe that, as a university, this is the way we must go. That is why, as a policy, if you move around campus, you will see a lot of solar lights.”

“Last year, we said every college, you must have a budget for the way forward for clean and green energy, and we are working on that. We thank God that this has happened today. AFREhealth has shown the way for us. Energy consultant, you are here, and you know this is how I want the parking areas to look like. So, you see, when you are a science and technology university, you are very innovative and very creative. So, we are parking our cars all the same and we are harvesting clean energy. What a beautiful way to use the resources that nature has endowed us with.”

Dr. Richard Opoku, the Energy Consultant for the university, said that they have set a target for the institution to generate 20 per cent of its energy needs through renewable sources by 2025.

“As a university, we have an energy policy that by 2025, 20% of our energy consumption should be supplied by renewable energy, particularly, solar energy. As part of the energy policy, colleges within the university have developed programs to install solar energy and renewable energy in general. Currently, the renewable energy generation in the total energy mix is less than 2 per cent. So, we have aggressively started trying to push to achieve this target of 20 per cent by 2025.”

Georgina Yeboah, the Executive Director of AFREhealth, highlighted the challenges they faced with unstable power supply, particularly during the Electricity Company of Ghana’s outages.

In response, they embarked on the solar system project, which incurred an installation cost of approximately sixty thousand US dollars [$60,000].

“AFREhealth is a Pan-African organization, we span across Africa and our membership is all over Africa. So, we do a lot of online and virtual activities. So, if you don’t have power and just imagine you are having your activities and suddenly, the power goes off. At times, we are the host (the secretariat) and so it affects the entire activity. So, when we discussed it with the school, the school also thought that we needed an alternative power source. We started talking about generators, we looked at the cost involved in using a generator, and then we came to settle on the solar.”

The project was funded by the National Institute of Health, Fogarty International Center, USA.