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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 feel free to publish or reproduce, with credits, unedited. If posted on a website, email a copy of the web page to publisher@ghanadot.com. Or don't publish at all.

 

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