Opportunities for minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) for electric motors in Ghana

High electricity tariff levels pose a challenge for economic development for the productive sector in Ghana. Electric motors have poor energy efficiency, facing maintenance issues and hard environment. The overall energy consumption of electric motor is estimated to account for around 4 TWh per year. The United for Efficiency initiative estimates the potential annual electricity savings for electric motors at 230 GWh by 2040. The government of Ghana has been a pioneer in West Africa and also in the African continent in general, in regard to energy efficiency standards and labelling. Electric motors might follow next, as Ghana included the elaboration of standards and labelling for electric motors into the National Energy Efficiency Plan from 2015. However, standards for electric motors have not yet been developed in Ghana. Already implemented standards for appliances in Ghana but also in other sub-Saharan countries were mainly developed using a policy benchmarking approach. This paper summarises an independent, academic work, which investigates the opportunity of setting Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) for electric motors in Ghana as well as the level of requirements and the impact of such a regulation. The work carried out follows the principles of the well-established EU Methodology for Ecodesign of Energy-related Products (MEErP). The MEErP will allow a better and more detailed consideration of the local context than a benchmarking approach. Since Ghana has a large second-hand market of electric motors, the work will also cover second-hand electric motors, as only approximately 60 % of the imported products on the Ghanaian market are new. This paper will present the main development and results of the study. Beside the technical aspects, policy options will be suggested to foster energy efficiency of electric motors. Finally, the paper will present the possible impacts of the policy on the electricity and greenhouse gas savings in Ghana.