Impact assessment of the national rooftop solar programme (NRSP) on residential homes-A case study of beneficiaries in Accra-Ghana
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Date
2021-06-23
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Abstract
Worldwide attention has been drawn towards renewable energy especially in the
sphere of solar energy in a bid to tackle global energy deficit and environmental crises
such as global warming, air and water pollution. Solar energy offers an encouraging
solution to this search as it is a less polluting renewable energy resource and can be
easily converted into electricity through the use of Photovoltaic (PV) systems. Solar
PV systems provide electric energy by absorbing and converting sunlight into
electricity. It achieves this by an arrangement of several components known as the
Balance of System (BoS) and solar panels. PV systems range from small, rooftop
mounted or building integrated systems with capacities from a few to several tens of
kilowatts (kW), to large utility scale power stations of hundreds of megawatts. In
2007, Ghana was faced with drastic energy crisis and this lasted till the year 2016,
though it is not permanently solved in the country. There were persistent, regular and
unpredictable electric power outages. This satirically birthed the term “Dumsor”
literally meaning “off-on” to represent the worsening power crisis the country was
plagued with. In a bid for the government to solve this challenge, the Government of
Ghana (GoG), under the auspices of the Energy Commission of Ghana (EC) began an
implementation of a Capital Subsidy Scheme where free rooftop solar panels up to a
maximum capacity of 500 Watts peak to residential beneficiaries. This study therefore
sought to assess the impact of the rooftop PV solar systems on beneficiaries in Accra
since its implementation and to forecast its expected benefits or otherwise in the long
term for Ghana. Results showed from the study revealed that, there was very low
patronage of the programme by the citizenry. Only about 0.10% (2,449/2,270,000) of
the total population of the people in Accra applied to benefit from the project. There
was a further reduced number of beneficiaries (727) who actually got the solariii
systems to be installed in their homes. The mean expenditure on power and
consumption levels of beneficiaries before and after installation of the rooftop solar
PV systems was significantly reduced. Results showed that every reduction in
consumption level was accompanied by almost two times reduction in cost of
electricity. However, the major challenge beneficiaries had faced with the rooftop
solar PV systems were the batteries. In effect, the project was a good programme and
should be continued.
Description
A thesis submitted to the Department of Construction Technology and Management, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi in partial fulfilment of requirement for the Award of Master of Science.
Keywords
Impact, Assessment of the national rooftop solar programme (NRSP), Resiendial homes, Beneficiaries in Accra, Ghana