On 16th February, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Energy Commission (EC) of Ghana, in cooperation with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and Perspectives Climate Group, invited national stakeholders to a consultation workshop to introduce green air conditioners in Accra, Ghana.
In total, 24 representatives from the public and private sector joined the event which aimed at presenting and discussing the project called ‘Green AC market transformation programme’ which is currently under development.
The programme has the main objective to shift Ghana’s air-conditioning (AC) sector toward low carbon cooling by paving the way for ACs with high energy efficiency, and the use of low greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting refrigerants. The programme development is funded by the Swiss Foundation for Climate Protection and Carbon Offset KliK.
The refrigeration and AC sector is a significant contributor to Ghana’s current and future GHG emissions, both through emissions from the leakage of high global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants and through emissions due to the electricity consumption of the equipment. In particular, the split AC sub-sector is having a large impact on the national emissions balance, accounting for about 8 percent of national GHG emissions.
The activity aims to transform Ghana’s AC sector toward green cooling by accelerating the uptake of highly energy efficient and climate-friendly AC units. The introduction of these ‘Green Split ACs’ is supported by various financial and technical measures aimed at strengthening the potential of alternative and sustainable technologies. The envisaged measures range from financial incentives that remove economic barriers over capacity-building measures to the adequate disposal of end-of-life equipment.
The stakeholder consultation workshop benefitted from a lively discussion that looked at the programme from different angles and revealed several aspects and suggestions from the participants.
Further issues were identified through bilateral discussions with various stakeholders from both the public and private sectors, such as EPA, EC, MESTI, banks, importers, training centres, air conditioning associations, waste management and destruction companies, etc., which were held throughout the week. These points will be incorporated into the further elaboration of the programme during the preparation of the so-called Mitigation Activity Design Document (MADD).
