Dumsor
causing a stir on our university campuses?
E. Ablorh-Odjidja
May 14, 2015
Some of us are ignorant about
what goes on at our university campuses. But
when the Minister of Finance announced that
” The Ghana government has spent more than
GH˘30million on utilities for the nine
public universities in the country," we knew
something was amiss.
Mr. Terkper, the Finance
Minister, was delivering a public lecture on
“Challenges and experiences of managing the
economy of Ghana”, at the University of Cape
Coast (UCC) when he made this statement on
campus subsidies, as reported by Ghana
Business News on May 10, 2015.
“In as much as utilities and
subsidies are important, we should make sure
that they are not excessive because they
bring the budget to its knees as we saw in
2012,” he said.
We heard the budget pain as Mr.
Tekper expressed the need for the
universities to find alternate sources, such
as solar, for electricity.
But have these universities heard
about alternate power production sources
like solar?
If not then our cherished ideas
about higher education need a rehaul.
Education at places like KNUST,
Legon, and others should have a more
practical and problem-solving orientation.
There is no need this late for a
government policy to put this into effect.
Certainly, there was a
governmental policy expectation on solar in
1964, when Kwame Nkrumah delivered his
speech at the Laying of the Foundation Stone
of Ghana's Atomic Reactor at Kwabenya and
made much capital of solar as a source for
generating electricity.
He said, " I have also recently
directed the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission
to investigate and expand research on the
possibilities of solar energy, which is
already going on at the Kwame Nkrumah
University of Science and Technology
(KNUST). It is estimated that even one-tenth
of the solar energy falling on the earth’s
surface would be enough to produce an amount
of energy several times the amount generated
at present. In Africa, we have no lack of
sunlight, and the development of solar
energy should be one of our main scientific
preoccupations."
Surprisingly, this was an
expectation that was made some 50 years ago
when the entire world had little concern for
solar.
Moreover, KNUST was mentioned in the
same speech.
The minister's statement showed a
lack of knowledge about this history. There
was no intent in his speech to ask how far
KNUST got with the research on solar.
His point, however, was on the
burden on the national budget and the demand
by foremost educational institutions for
energy subsidies. But where does it say that
these institutions can't generate
supplementary power from solar on campuses?
A search on the websites of both
Legon and KNUST showed no indication of
research or application of solar technology
on these campuses.
There is a Department of
Materials Science and Engineering at Legon.
It states its "Objective and Mission" is "
to provide education in materials science
and engineering to meet national needs, to
conduct interdisciplinary research that
creates materials for tomorrow’s innovative
technologies, and to be at the forefront of
the international materials community in
developing strategies to overcome evolving
material challenges."
A task of supplemental energy
generation can easily be a program for this
department; to create programs that can
reduce the university's dependency on
government subsidy.
But before you conclude whatever
your thoughts were, read first the News,
Events, and Announcements page of this same
department. There is nothing there that
reflects or announces the lofty aims of this
department at Legon.
And then on to KNUST that has had
a head start or idea on solar since 1964.
You would wonder that this
institution would have something substantial
in the development of this industry by now.
But you would be disappointed.
The KNUST Energy Center has none;
just a web page of a report culled from The
Ghanaian Times that said " The Energy
Commission (EC) has initiated a project to
have Rooftop Solar System in 200,000 houses
across the country."
Legon and KNUST, these two
premier institutions, have no program for
solar. You
wonder where our policy enforcers like Seth
Terkper were not to have seen the neglect
since 1964.
These institutions of higher
education should be the spearheads for
solutions to developmental problems like
Dumsor. They have the inherent mission to
set examples; rather than joining the queue
for subsidies from the government.
Top universities in the US are
pathfinders in alternative energy generation
today. Solar has become the pathway for
energy cost reduction on campuses.
The gains are not only to be found in
savings.
There are also gains to be found as
good stewards of the environment.
The University of Colorado at
Boulder generates about "1,100
kilowatt-hours of energy, enough to power
about 200 average-sized houses." … and work
toward the long-term goal of achieving
carbon neutrality."
Universities in Ghana have as
much reason as the American universities do
to self-generate power.
Probably
more so, given their situations as one of
the few modern institutions left to offer
change and the burden to prove their worth.
They can do this by offering
practical solutions to current pressing
problems, which Dumsor in the country is
one.
In promoting solar technology on
campuses, American universities get the
opportunity to teach and unveil a new
industry to students while also contributing
savings to the general local economy.
By generating enough solar
electricity, Legon and KNUST can help the
regions they are located in by sparing the
use of the portions that could have come to
them.
In November 2014, the University
of California, Irvine announced that it was
"increasing on-site solar power production
fourfold."
The top three American
universities in solar production, Arizona
State University, Rutgers, and Mount St.
Mary’s University produce between them some
58384 KW, roughly 58 MW of power, and this
is enough to power a medium-sized town in
Ghana.
The American universities have
nothing like Dumsor on their heels. They are
spurred on by the need to be innovative and
be good corporate citizens for energy
conservation.
Ghanaian universities need to do
better under the dire state of our
underdevelopment.
The technology for solar production
is within reach and certainly within that of
our universities.
The charge of higher educational
institutions is to make a difference,
especially at critical times. Otherwise,
what is the use of a university?
Solar provides energy “security”
that a third world nation like ours should
cherish; at least for as long as the sun
exists. Legon
sits on a hill and has many roofs that can
serve as prime real estate for solar panels.
But KNUST has had a head start on the idea
since 1964.
It has been some 50 years since
Nkrumah promoted the idea of solar so what
happened?
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher
www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, May 14,
2015.
Permission to publish: Please
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