Investing in the cheapest form of energy: efficiency practices of SMEs in rural Ghana.

Ackah, Ishmael (2015): Investing in the cheapest form of energy: efficiency practices of SMEs in rural Ghana.

Abstract

Efficiency has been identified as the cheapest and cleanest source of fuel. Whilst effort has been made in the advanced countries to promote technology and efficiency, little is known about efficiency in emerging economies in Africa. The purpose of this study is to identify the energy efficiency practices of SMEs in rural Ghana and also examine the barriers to energy efficiency practices. First, a descriptive analysis was used to examine the barriers and energy efficiency indicators. Finally, autometrics is used to examine the relationship between energy efficiency and productivity at the aggregate level. The study finds that lack of information on energy efficiency practices is the most important barrier to energy efficiency. On the practices, methods such as putting off electrical appliances when not in use or when closed, using new electrical appliances and using less appliances to achieve the same goal are some of the common ones adopted by SMEs in rural Ghana. The study recommends that the Ghana Energy Commission should intensify its energy efficiency education and extend this to rural areas.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Efficiency, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs), autometrics, Energy Consumption
• Subjects: Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q2 - Renewable Resources and Conservation; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q2 - Renewable Resources and Conservation > Q20 - General; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q2 - Renewable Resources and Conservation > Q21 - Demand and Supply ; Prices; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q4 - Energy; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q4 - Energy > Q42 - Alternative Energy Sources

References

Ackah, I., Adu, F., & Takyi, R. O. (2014). On The Demand Dynamics of Electricity in Ghana: Do Exogenous Non-Economic Variables Count?. International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, 4(2), 149-153.

Adom, K.P., Bekoe, W. (2012). Conditional dynamic forecast of electrical energy consumption requirements in Ghana by 2020: A comparison of ARDL and PAM. Energy Policy, 44, 367- 380.

Adom P.K., Bekoe, W. Akoena, S.K.K. (2012) Modeling aggregate domestic electricity demand in Ghana: An autoregressive distributed lag bounds cointegration approach, Energy Policy, 42, 530–537.

Aiyar, M. S., Duval, M. R. A., Puy, M. D., Wu, M. Y., & Zhang, M. L. (2013). Growth slowdowns and the middle-income trap (No. 13-71). International Monetary Fund.

Brace, I., 2004. Questionnaire design: how to plan, structure and write survey material for effective market research. Kogan Page, cop., London.

Bertoldi, P., Rezessy, S., & Bürer, M.J. (2005). Will emission trading promote end-use energy efficiency and renewable energy projects? In: Proceedings of the 2005 ACEEE summer study on energy efficiency in industry, vol. 4. American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, 1- 12

Clancy, J., & Dutta, S. (2005, May). Women and Productive Uses of Energy: Some light on a shadowy area. In Paper presented at the UNDP Meeting on Productive Uses of Renewable Energy (Vol. 9, p. 11).

Dan, S. (2002). The Improvement Of Energy Consumption Efficiency In China's Economic Growth [J]. Economic Research Journal, 9, 49-56.

Deindl, M.; Block, C.; Vahidov, R.; Neumann, D. Load Shifting Agents for Automated Demand Side Management in Micro Energy Grids. In Proceedings of the Second IEEE International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems (SASO’08), Venice, Italy, 20–24 October 2008; IEEE Computer Society: Washington, DC, USA, 2008; pp. 487–488.

Dincer, I. On thermal energy storage systems and applications in buildings. Energy Build. 2002, 34, 377–388.

Gboney, W. (2009). Policy and regulatory framework for renewable energy and energy efficiency development in Ghana. Climate Policy, 9(5), 508-516.

Gyamfi, S. (2007) “The Role of Demand Response in Managing Ghana's Electricity Supply” http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=125746

International Energy Agency (IEA). (2007). Tracking Industrial Energy Efficiency and CO2 Emissions. In support of the G8 Plan of Action. Energy Indicators.

ISSER (2013) “the state of the Ghanaian economy in 2013”Legon: Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research.

Jaffe, A. B., & Stavins, R. N. (1994). The energy-efficiency gap What does it mean?. Energy policy, 22(10), 804-810. Johansson, M. T. (2014). Improved energy efficiency within the Swedish steel industry—the importance of energy management and networking. Energy Efficiency, 1-32.

Jorgenson, D. W. (1984). The role of energy in productivity growth. The Energy Journal, 11-26.

Hendry, D. F., & Krolzig, H. M. (2005). The properties of automatic gets modelling*. The Economic Journal, 115(502), C32-C61.

Mohsenian-Rad, A.; Wong, V.W.S.; Jatskevich, J.; Schober, R.; Leon-Garcia, A. Autonomous Demand-Side Management Based on Game-Theoretic Energy Consumption Scheduling for the Future Smart Grid. System 2010, 1, 320–331.

Okalebo, J. and Hankins, M. (1997), Why Women Adopt Solar Dryers, in: ENERGIA News, Vol. 1, No. 3: pp. 6-7.

Patterson, M. G. (1996). What is energy efficiency?: Concepts, indicators and methodological issues. Energy policy, 24(5), 377-390.

Pellini, E. G. (2014). Essays on European Electricity Market Integration(Doctoral dissertation, University of Surrey).

Ma, C., & Stern, D. I. (2008). China's changing energy intensity trend: A decomposition analysis. Energy Economics, 30(3), 1037-1053.

Pace University. (2007). UNEP handbook for drafting laws on energy efficiency and renewable energy resources. UNEP/Earthprint.

Palensky, P., & Dietrich, D. (2011). Demand side management: Demand response, intelligent energy systems, and smart loads. Industrial Informatics, IEEE Transactions on, 7(3), 381-388.

Ramirez, C.A., Patel, M., & Blok, K. (2005). The non-energy intensive manufacturing sector. An energy analysis relating to the Netherlands. Energy 30 (5), 749–767

Sebastian G., et al, demand side management –a simulation of households behaviour under variable prices, energy policy journal, V 39, 2011).

Sorrell, S. (2007). The Rebound Effect: an assessment of the evidence for economy-wide energy savings from improved energy efficiency.

Thollander P., Danestig M., Rohdin P. (2007). Energy policies for increased industrial energy efficiency: Evaluation of a local energy programme for manufacturing SMEs. Energy policy 35, 5774–5783.

Worrell, E., Laitner, J., Ruth, M., Finman, H., 2003. Productivity benefits of industrial energy efficiency measures. Energy 28 (12): 1081-1098

Zaman, K., Khan, M. M., & Saleem, Z. (2011). Bivariate cointegration between energy consumption and development factors: a case study of Pakistan.International Journal of Green Energy, 8(8), 820-833.

Zhang, Z. (2003). Why did the energy intensity fall in China's industrial sector in the 1990s? The relative importance of structural change and intensity change.Energy Economics, 25(6), 625-638.