Germany ready to support Ghana’s renewable energy transition – Commissioner

Germany has expressed interest in supporting Ghana to expand her renewable energy portfolio to include green hydrogen.

As part of Germany’s commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2045, the European country has earmarked €3.53 billion to procure green hydrogen and its derivatives between 2027 and 2036.

The move is expected to reduce the country’s dependency on fossil fuel especially in the industrial sector as it plans to cut its carbon emissions by 65 per cent by 2030.

Speaking to journalists in Accra as part of his working visit to Ghana, Mr Till Mansmann, Special Commissioner for Innovation and Green Hydrogen from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, said Germany was seeking for partners worldwide.

Mr Mansmann met with government officials, experts and stakeholders to discuss opportunities in the green hydrogen sector as part of his visit to Ghana.

The Special Commissioner told journalists that Germany was committed to the Paris Climate Agreement and was ready to partner countries to develop solutions to reduce dependency on fossil fuel.

Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is expected to import up to 70 per cent of its hydrogen needs in the future to meet industry demand.

Mr Mansmann said Africa, with her abundant renewable energy resources such as solar and wind, had a great potential to attract global investment in renewable energy, adding that green hydrogen was among the investment areas to focus on.

“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.

“We are interested in making this cooperation towards energy more intensive,” he said.

Ghana’s Energy Transition Framework targets a total shift from fossil fuel to green energy by 2070.

The country considers renewable energy as one of the options to contribute to the overall energy mix to improve security of supply and to reduce emissions.

Mr Mansmann said renewable energy is “quite cheap” and added that “investments in renewable energy are a very good idea.”

Renewable energy experts tout hydrogen as the energy source of the future, with demand for hydrogen projected to vary from 150 to 500 million metric tonnes per year by 2050, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Contrary to hydrogen, which is produced from natural gas, green hydrogen uses renewable electricity to power electrolysis that splits water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.

This process, according to experts, does not require fossil fuel, making it a better option to accelerate decarbonisation targets.

Source: GNA

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