Recent upward adjustment of electricity tariffs by some 43 percentage difference points to a bitter reality that electricity and water tariffs are not going to come down anytime soon though government has heavily subsidized these two amenities soon after the announcements were made.
In fact, it is argued that these subsidies in themselves have rather plunged the utility companies into huge debts as the subsidies were hardly paid to the companies.
As consumers, we have contributed to the waste in the system and added by our actions and inactions have paid more for electricity and water consumption.
It is a common sight that many streetlights, security lights, and many appliances are left on in our homes and offices and other work sites though they might not be in use.
A case in point is the refusal of the Electricity Company of Ghana to turn off street lights at the break of dawn in some communities. Consumers are rather billed to pay for the waste we did not help create in anyway.
Again in our homes and offices, it is common to keep empty fridges, air conditioners, and other electrical gadgets still turned on while we might not be in need of them within a certain time frame, not to talk about their economical use in the rainy season when temperatures are mostly tolerable.
We are tempted to use the water kettle, heater, the hair drier or the Microwave even though using the gas cooker for a few minutes as the most cost effective substitute could do our budget and our health a lot of good.
In short, we lack a sense of responsibility and savings as regards the judicious use of power, water and other resources.
An emerging trend development in our building and construction sector that must be encouraged by all and sundry is the use of transparent roofs that harness the power of the sunlight to lighten even the inner chambers of offices and buildings without the recourse to electric bulbs as the sole source of illumination.
The roofing of the Ring Road Head office of the Ghana Union Assurance Building, directly opposite the Head office of the State Insurance Company (SIC), the head office of Millicom Ghana Limited, operators of Tigo, the Old Parliamentary Affairs building near the Kofi Annan ICT centre and a few homes around cantonments challenged my thoughts as regards the use of architecture and its technology to save the high cost of electricity consumption to many individuals and institutions in the long run.
Foremost, the design of the buildings mentioned is such that the roofs are transparent and thus sunlight sips into the entire floors of the buildings.
Automatically, the cost that come with the use of electricity bulbs on many floors on the building is minimised if not total eliminated and this will definitely translate on their daily electricity consumption of those using this technology.
At nightfall in these homes, one could even enjoy the beauty of the skies from the comfort of your living room.
It would be very prudent if central air conditioning systems are encouraged in huge buildings, churches and mosques, especially the ones that are either under construction or those still on the draftsman’s table, instead on the single unit air conditioners dotted all over the windows of offices all over the country. I believe that the use of the central air conditional system would equally help save cost of electricity consumption and this would help reduce the overhead cost of production of some firms, offices or organisations. Huge savings would be made and channelled into other areas to promote the efficiency of the organization.
Furthermore, the stakeholders in the Energy sector must help design and promote a vigorous educational campaign, slogans and messages to instil in consumers the most effective and efficient energy saving practises so that we do not get to this point again in the future where the only remedy to ensuring effective service delivery by the Electricity Company of Ghana is via tariff increase.
Consumers must be encouraged through radio and television programmes, school outreach programmes, paraphernalia, text messages, Church services, mosque worships, and any other medium possible to promote a best practises to help consumers conserve and use electricity and water wisely or else we risk paying much higher tariffs in future for losses which could have been avoided through education.
The Consumer Protection Agency must be very interested in this action so that they can take the education even closer to the rural areas especially those who do not have the benefit of the power of radio and television.
It is about time our engineers considered new and modern ways of building and construction that would help conserve power and make use of these amenities to our maximum benefit but at the cheapest cost possible.
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