A statement from the 3SiL and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Friday said government had initiated plans to increase access to lighting in deprived off-grid homes by increasing solar lanterns to two million.

Mr Boateng said these initiatives could easily be attained with the right private sector partnership. “As the preferred developers of the 50 Megawatt solar hybrid Bui Power Authority project, the Strategic Power Solutions (SPS) is willing to work with the Government and the Ministry of Energy to complete the project in a timely and cost-effective manner,” he said.

Mr Boateng said even though Ghana was implementing the Scaling-up Renewable Energy Programme (SREP), which would catalyse private investment in renewable energy, government needed to be more aggressive with its plans.

He said SREP would see to the implementation of 55 mini-grids, 38,000 solar home systems in off-grid communities and 15,000 units of solar rooftop installations to increase the renewable energy component in Ghana’s energy mix. Mr Boateng said the SPS launched West Africa’s only solar manufacturing plant in March, last year, and had since produced 30 megawatts of power to be upgraded to 100 megawatts by the end of 2017.

The 3SiL, which is the parent company of SPS, had, under the Solar Lighting Programme, distributed 1.2 million solar torch lights to farmers across cocoa, sheanut and coffee growing areas of the country.

The 3SiL is the only solar panel manufacturing plant in West Africa.