A two day capacity building workshop on the design, management, applications and financial viability of biogas technologies has been organized for stakeholders in the biogas sector in Ghana with expert experiences from Europe, Ethiopia, Ghana and South Africa under the auspices of the Digital Global Biogas cooperation Project with funding from European Union Horizon2020
The workshop was aimed at building capacity of local practitioners in the biogas sector in the design, management, applications and financing of large scale biogas projects in Ghana. The workshop was facilitated by experts from Germany, Ethiopia, South Africa and Ghana.
Topics covered included, biogas for electricity generation with experiences from Raymond Okrofu from Safisana Ghana and Mr. Frank Hoffman from the German Biogas Association who also spoke on Biogas Technologies from Europe, as well as revenue and financing options for biogas projects. Both gave participants in-depth knowledge on the technicalities for biogas for electricity generation with experiences from Europe.
Others included Dr. Wondwossen Bogale, from ICEADDIS, Ethiopia who provided training on the topic; “Advancements in biogas Technology” including biogas upgrading, bottling, use for transport and organic fertilizer with experiences from Ethiopia.
Dr. Andy Quarshie from CSIR IIR also demonstrated the Anaerobic Baffled Bio-Digester (ABBD) technology and showed how significant the ABBD can be used to promote on-site treatment of waste in households and institutions. The technology can easily be used to replace biofill toilets and ISEES Ghana is keep to work together with Dr. Quarshie and the Biosewers Limited to promote the technology in Ghana.
The workshop was enriching with Yaseen Salie, an expert from GreenCape, South Africa training participants on Biogas Project management: Lesson from South Africa which included how to conduct feasibility and project development analysis for biogas projects.
The workshop ended with Mrs Agnes Ansah Osei from the Private Financing Advisory Network (PFAN) expantiating on Financing opportunities for biogas and renewable energy project developers with focus on opportunites within the PFAN network.
Dr. Mutala Mohammed, Project Manager of the Digital Global Biogas Cooperation Project and Senior Bioenergy Officer at ISEES indicated that, the workshop is part of the DiBiCoo project’, which is a 3 year European Union Horizon2020 funded research project, being implemented in 9 countries, coordinated by GIZ GmbH with 13 consortium partners including Ghana. The overall objective of the project is to strengthen cooperation and facilitate market development between the European biogas/biomethane industry and biogas actors in emerging countries including Ghana. This is being achieved by the development and application of innovative digital and non-digital support tools and actions, knowledge transfer and capacity building as well as by the preparation of demo case projects up to the investment stage.
Mr. Lovans Owusu-Takyi, the Director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy and Environmental Solutions (ISEES) indicated that, the biogas sector needs a lot o support in Ghana and the need to strengthen capacity of biogas project developers in Ghana to be able to develop good quality projects, promote the biogas technologies for municipalities, industries and households adoption is key to addressing the major challenges of sanitation, liquid waste management, municipal waste management as well as industrial liquid waste in the food processing industries . He called for accelerating regulations in the Biogas sector and driving investments to scale up biogas technologies in Ghana. Mr. Lovans said, the biogas technology in Ghana has significant benefit in improving livelihoods, the environment, climate change and contributing to sustainable development. He added that biogas technologies has potential for reducing green house gas emissions and contributing to the government’s agenda for low carbon economic development agenda. Biogas could be used as alternative fuels in transportation, cooking, electricity generation and as biofertilizers to improve the economy and efforts to promote investments into biogas should be scaled up.
He said his Institute will be working with government to promulgate regulations for biogas in Ghana whiles developing the skills and capacities of practitioners in the biogas and bioenergy sector in Ghana.
Mr. Lovans expressed appreciation to the Digital Global Biogas Cooperation Project of the European Union Horizon2020 for the partnership to grow and develop a sustainable market for the biogas and biomethane industry in Ghana