Ministry of Petroleum and Energy Targets to Reduce Fuel Import Dependency
By Our Correspondent
Lamin K Marong, the Senior Energy Officer has confirmed that the strategic aim of Ministry of Petroleum and Energy is to reduce Gambia’s dependency rate on fuel importation and improve access to affordable efficient energy to the population which also reduces capital for new production units (especially peaking) GHG emissions due to the consumption of fossil fuels in order to meet its international obligations on climate change.
In his presentation at the launching of the National Energy Strategy, he highlight the main barriers of Energy Efficiency in the Gambian that it regulatory, technical, financial and informational that regulatory barriers unavailability are of key mechanisms targeting EE such as MEPS, and energy labelling of appliances, EE building code, mandatory energy audits for large consumers and EE public procurement rules.
Adding that the objective is to create an enabling environment for EE, including local capacity building to prepare and implement EE investments to also strengthen and increase the competitiveness of the Gambian economy in the residential, industrial and commercial sectors that the Gambia has committed to implementing EE measures across energy sectors residential, commercial, and industrial.
He noted the need for the regional policies and initiatives to be adopted and implemented in the Gambia thus the progress made at the regional level can stimulate the market transition in the Gambia, adding that the total energy consumption in the Gambia in 2019 was around 752,500 TOE and the residential sector is the highest consumer of energy (Biomass and Electricity) with 62% of the Total Energy Consumption.
He lamented that, the electricity mix is highly dependent from fossil fuel (completely imported), since renewable energy represents 3% of the total generated electricity and The Gambian developed in 2017 an electricity sector roadmap that was updated in 2021 according to the BAU Scenario the electricity demand is expected to grow with an average increase of more than 10% per year.
