1. The Negawatt Challenge For Energy Efficiency The experience of the City of Accra By Lydia Sackey,-Addy, Director of Budget and Rating Accra Metropolitan Assembly

2. Accra’s influence and contribution to Ghana’s Economic Development Agenda Accra Metropolitan Assembly is one of the 216 Local Authorities in Ghana charged to work towards the improvement of the quality of life of her people

3. MAP OF AMA

4. The City is the commercial, industrial, cultural and diplomatic hub for Ghana. It is home to 18% of the population of the country. It is also the fastest growing and the most urbanized city in the Country. Accra is already a major contributor to GDP, contributing significantly to the growing healthy status of business and Tourism in the Country.

5. Accra and the challenges of growth and development With the City’s rate of urbanization Accra’s population will continue to grow beyond the current estimation of 4million people.

6. The growing demand for energy in the face of the “Dumsor” (power crisis) phenomenon will continue to be a major challenge. Looking at some of Accra’s identified urban challenges- energy, transportation and city services. Technology would certainly help transform Accra into a smarter and more efficient ecosystem.

7. The collective vision of Accra as an energy efficient City Research and experience show that energy efficiency can play a great role to help save energy on a household level and beyond

8. Accra therefore opted to be part of the World Bank’s Negawatt Challenge which aims at igniting bottom-up innovations around energy efficiency and funded by Korean Green Growth Trust Fund

9. Accra’s energy efficiency potential was assessed using the Tool for Rapid Assessment of City Energy (TRACE) by a team of consultants from World Bank. The TRACE assessment focused on the energy efficiency potential in key energy consuming areas like buildings (public and private), transportations, schools, markets etc.

10. The assessment also considered the potential of the city in turning the daily 2500 metric tonnes of waste to energy and other renewable source of energy

11. The team interviewed a category of energy consumers, including residents, professionals in the building industry, financial institutions, the electricity company of Ghana (ECG), policy makers, service providers etc. With the results of the TRACE, the city moved into the next stage which is the NEGAWATT CHALLENGE and it brought together all relevant stakeholders and officials to share ideas. The World Bank teamed up with Ispace foundation.

12. Main stages of the Negawatt challenge Preparation stage started in October 2014, with a pre-scoping World Bank’s mission to Accra and Kumasi. During the mission the World Bank’s team, confirmed its interest in being a key government counterpart on the initiative. Aside from that the World Bank met with all key technology and innovation communities in the City as well as with a number of actors from public and private sectors, academia, and donor community.

13. Challenge Definition Day, an event that launched the process to identify and define specific challenges pertaining to energy efficiency on a city level.

14. Over 40 diverse stakeholders were convened to deliberate on the themes including: (i) Demand-side management of energy (ii) Energy audits (iii) Building insulation (iv) Financing of energy efficiency projects (v) Building energy data ecosystems (vi) Efficiency of appliances.

15. Design Thinking Workshop, involved energy and technology stakeholders from the public, private sectors and civil society identifying the most pressing energy efficiency issues facing the city of Accra which could be solved through innovative, technology enabled product and services. At this stage the stakeholders also determined which relevant government data sets are open to public use and which ones have not been released but are in demand by the private sector and civil society.

16. Meet up Day, involved a free and open to the public activities designed to stir interest around the topic of energy efficiency and the competition itself.

17. Negawatt Weekend, was a two-day ideathon hosted by the iSpace. It was open to innovators, techies, entrepreneurs, energy experts and anyone interested in urban energy innovations. The event drew more than 70 participants and saw 14 teams putting their energy and talent to hard work to develop innovative ideas for products and services to improve energy efficiency in Accra, leveraging technology and looking at marketability

18. Boot camp- four winning teams worked hard to build and improve upon their project The winning teams and their ideas were: Team Asor, which focused on offering data services to improve demand-side management through a hardware and software solution that allows consumers to estimate power needs of home appliances, as well as track (in real time) their electricity consumption status and that of their neighborhood

19. Team Flip, which explored enhancing the demand-side management of energy by introducing an energy- saving and time-controlled switch for street lighting and commercial lighting in buildings Team Sun Shade, which came up with a way to strengthen building insulation by offering a photovoltaic upgrade to a conventional shading system, in which the shade would absorb sun energy and reuse it to power lighting and, in the future, other household appliances

20. Team WI, which focused on strengthening building insulation by offering a turbine-cooled housing unit that uses a process known as air exchange

21. Demo day- two out of four teams were selected to the next stage, these were sunshade and Asor Global pitch and demo event- one of these two teams will represent Accra at the Smart City Expo world conference in November

22. Lessons learnt Participation in the various stages of the Negawatt Challenge provided the platform for all stakeholders, policy makers, enforcers and implementers of the laws, professionals, builders and residents to discuss openly the importance and barriers to energy efficiency It came out clearly that there are definite roles for the various stakeholders identified

23. The communities, especially the youth, have the potential to transform Accra into a sustainable energy efficient city if they are empowered and guided to innovate around local energy issues Reflecting on the presentations and solutions the competitors put forward, it became obvious that investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency can help build resilience in the economy and also save the environment

24. More work on these innovations can lead to energy efficiency measures which can contribute towards the elimination of “Dumsor”.

25. Thank you for your attention!