The overall goal of our Renewable Energy programmes is to promote renewable energy market development in Ghana by providing equitable access to affordable and efficient renewable energy solutions to households, institutions, small and medium enterprises with focus on Biomass and Solar.

The ARA Ghana renewable energy programme broadly falls within the cross section of the ARA corporate renewable energy strategy and the Government of Ghana renewable energy policy. In 2013, the programme seeks to impact 20,000 people in 10 Districts, to have access to renewable energy technologies. The focus is on Improved Cook-Stoves and solar. The reasons for selecting these two priority sub-sectors are the following:

1. There is a strong interest in improved and clean cook-stoves in Ghana, both for households and institutions/industries. Deforestation is one of the main development issues in Ghana and ICS contribute to address this. ARA Ghana does, however, also include fuel switching for cooking. For instance switching from fuel-wood to Liquefied Petroleum Gas or from wood charcoal to charcoal from agricultural residues.

2. Energy for lighting is, next to energy for cooking, high on the development priorities of the rural poor. The cleanest and relative low cost solution is solar lighting. For this reason solar electricity is selected as the second priority sub-sector. The main issues related to the promotion of solar lighting are awareness creation and providing access to micro financing. These are areas ARA is well placed to provide a valuable contribution. Although the priority is solar lanterns and solar lighting, other PV application will also be supported such as solar home systems and solar pumping.