Ghana imports 17,000 electric vehicles from 2017-2021 – Dr Agyemang
Ghana has imported over 17,000 plug-in Electric Vehicles between 2017 and 2021, a senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana, Dr Ernest Agyemang, has revealed.
According to him, this was a clear indication that Ghana was slowly coming to terms with the importance of tackling issues of climate change head-on and moving from Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles to Electric Vehicles (EV’s).
Dr Agyemang said this at a policy dialogue on EV’s organised by the Ministry of Transportation (MoT) in Accra on Wednesday.
He added that there were several types of EV’s and some included “Pure EV’s, which has only one electric motor and charges its battery through a connection to electric grid; Hybrid Electric Vehicle, which has one electric motor and one combustion engine. The vehicle charges the battery without using electrical outlet.”
He further explained that the Hybrid Plug-in vehicles had a combustion engine and an electric motor that could function with a series, parallel or mixed system, adding that “it will help address some of the climate change issues as it was identified as the largest source of air pollution in the country”.
According to Dr Agyemang, for Ghana to fully switch to the use of EV’s, some infrastructural barriers, including “inadequate charging stations, long charging time, unreliable power supply, problem of battery disposal and risk of battery degradation, needed to be addressed.
The Deputy Minister of Transport, Mr Hassan Tampuli, stated that electric vehicles would soon dominate the automobile market in Ghana, hence the need to formulate sustainable policies to prepare towards it.
He added that similar extensive dialogues with key stakeholders had been held across the country with the exception of Greater Accra and the Upper West Regions.
He underscored the importance of E-mobility policy as it would help in fashioning the standards in the guidelines and operating mechanisms for the rollout of EV’s in the country.
“A number of EV’s are already in town and we do not have the policy yet so it’s important to expedite the dialogues and roll out the policies,” he said.
The Director of Policy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the MOT, Mrs Irene Messiba, said strategies being employed by the MOT to ensure the demand for EV’s include “to provide public education and awareness to ensure nationally consistent information on the benefits and realities of driving electric vehicles.”
Other strategies, she said, included “implementing incentives, both monetary and non-monetary, to ensure penetration of EV’s, facilitate access to green financing for commercial vehicles and ensure that public sector procurement of vehicles will be based on EV’s,” she said.
On preparing Ghana for the incoming change, she said, lithium had recently been discovered in some parts of the country, hence the need to leverage that to make Ghana a production hub for lithium-ion batteries.
“We will leverage the availability of lithium in the country to establish a lithium-ion battery production to meet local demand and for export for electrical vehicles,” she explained.
BY BENEDICTA GYIMAAH FOLLEY
