Removing barriers and promoting demand-side energy efficiency in households in Sub-Saharan Africa: A case study in Ghana

Adoption of higher energy efficiency for electrical appliances by consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is challenged with a number of barriers despite its long term energy savings and economic benefits. Inefficient electrical appliances continue to flood the markets of most SSA countries with just a few of the counties having resolute energy efficiency programs with established energy efficiency standards and labels. This paper examines the barriers to energy efficiency in SSA, with a case study on how Ghana was able to overcome these barriers by using high levels of stakeholder engagement to develop and implement its energy efficiency standards and labels for electrical appliances. Analysis from this study reveals that the Ghana policy development process is consistent with a quadruple helix model of policy and marketplace innovation. The quadruple-helix analytical framework identifies four key sectors of society: government, academia, industry and public/media that drive energy efficiency knowledge and innovations. The resulting barrier removal and institutional transformations enabled by the quadruple-helix dynamics have laid the foundation for a dramatic expansion of Ghanaian energy efficiency policy-making. New energy efficiency policies in Ghana are expected to revise or implement new efficiency standards on a total of 20 product categories by 2022.