Fighting Poverty With Energy Planning

Published: 14 Juney 2012

<strong>HUMANS NEED ENERGY</strong> for every aspect of their lives. It fuels the production of goods and services. <strong>AND</strong> without it we couldn’t provide growing populations with education, health care, telecommunication, clean water supply and sanitation. <strong>TO ESCAPE POVERTY,</strong> you need to have access to affordable, reliable energy. <strong>SO GOVERNMENTS</strong> need to ensure they will have enough electricity generation capacity to meet the current and future needs of their economies and populations. The IAEA helps Member States like Ghana conduct national and regional energy systems analysis and planning. <strong>ENERGY PLANNERS</strong> and national policy analysts use computer modelling software with the requisite training provided by the IAEA, to estimate how much energy will be needed in the next 20 to 50 years, the potential energy sources, and how much could be generated from each source. <strong>GHANA</strong> is one of the 83 countries worldwide, and one of 34 African nations, that the IAEA is helping plan their energy strategies. <strong>GHANA</strong> recently completed a study of their energy needs into 2030, concluding that in order to achieve energy sufficiency and satisfy the needs of its estimated 33 million inhabitants in 2030, the country would have to use a mix of gas, hydroelectric power, renewable sources like solar and wind, as well as nuclear power. <strong>THE IAEA's</strong> advice is technology-neutral, including everything from fossil fuels to renewables. The choices a country makes are determined by resources, infrastructure development and sustainable development objectives. <strong>WITH A POPULATION</strong> that's now growing at 3% each year and energy demand that, alarmingly, will double in less than a decade, Ghana's policymakers know they need a reliable, realistic roadmap of how to meet the needs of the expanding industrial, agricultural, transport and commercial sectors. This roadmap is what the IAEA's energy planning assistance provides. Special thanks to Isaac Ennison and the staff of the Ghana Energy Commission, the University of Ghana's School of Nuclear and Allied Sciences and the IAEA Department of Technical Cooperation.