Ghana will continue to remain a key partner to Germany, to develop alternate energy sources in place of fossil fuel, the Special Commissioner for Innovation and Green Hydrogen at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany, Mr Till Mansmann, has assured.
He said consequently, his country was ready to support Ghana exploit her abundant renewable energy mix to include Green Hydrogen.
Mr Mansmann announced this when he interacted with selected journalists, at a cocktail dinner held in his honour at the residence of German Ambassador to Ghana, in Accra, on Monday, as part of his official working visit to Ghana.
The event was also to assess levels of collaboration and also discuss opportunities within the green hydrogen area.
Mr Mansmann said his country was very much committed to the Paris Treaty on Climate Action, and was working to achieve the climate action target, which included reducing dependence on fossil fuel to reduce emissions by 65 per cent by 2030.
“Germany knows that we are an energy importing country and we will be importing a lot of energy in the future, so Germany is looking for partners worldwide to replace fossil energy on a global scale and this is where Ghana comes in,” he stated.
Mr Mansmann underscored the need for Ghana and Africa as a whole to take advantage of their enormous renewable energy resources in order to attract investment into that sector.
“The opportunities for renewable energy investment in Africa are really great. Ghana is a good partner for us. We have partnership in education, Mathematics and in different fields and we are interested in making this cooperation towards energy more intensive,” he said.
Mr Mansmann said renewable energy was not only efficient, but also quite cheap when weighed against the initial investment.
He said Germany had earmarked 3.53billion euros to procure green hydrogen and it derivatives between 2027 and 2045.
Mr Mansmann said the move formed part of his country’s commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2045, adding that Ghana could serve as a great partner in this direction.
He said the German government was already assuming leadership roles at foreign, science, security and economic policy level in an interdepartmental responsibility and was seeking to partner countries in Africa especially Ghana in that direction.
Mr Mansmann said “We want to contribute to the prerequisites for ensuring that the hydrogen ramp-up in interested partner countries serves to achieve the sustainable development goals and the respective national climate protection targets”.
As part of his visit, he held discussions with both state actors and non-state actors, including government officials, academics, experts in the field of renewable energy, and stakeholders.
Green hydrogen is hydrogen produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity through a process called electrolysis.
It is an emerging form of renewable energy that has very low or zero carbon emissions and more desirable than the traditional energies.
BY CLIFF EKUFUL
