IBRES team in Kumasi, Ghana
Dr Alison Mohr is part of a multidisciplinary team from the University of Nottingham who recently visited Ghana to meet the Ghanaian project members, report on progress and to engage in the impact acceleration workshop. The IBRES consortium is led by the University of Nottingham in partnership with Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Ghana, Centre for Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development (CEESD) Ghana and the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD).
The IBRES project is funded under the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and aims to develop a decentralised bioenergy electricity generation system for rural communities using cocoa pod husks (CPH) as a fuel in a gasification system. The project integrates technical and socio-economic components to create small scale bio-power electricity generation systems, develop guidelines for demonstrating full scale bioenergy schemes and their integration into rural communities, investigate stakeholders’ perceptions of the bioenergy schemes and develop community cooperatives and governance structures appropriate to the local communities in cocoa producing regions.
The Impact acceleration workshop event on 22 January 2018, jointly organised by researchers from KNUST and the University of Nottingham, was attended by over 50 delegates including academics, NGOs, economists, legal representatives, members of the Ghanaian government and representatives of farmers from the cocoa growing regions of the country.
Dr Alison Mohr discussed the challenges and opportunities for developing cooperatives in emerging economies using examples of community energy schemes that she has worked on in Kenya and Bangladesh. Cocoa is a major crop and revenue source for local farmers and the Ghanaian government and the country is the second highest producer of cocoa in the world. Previous feasibility studies have indicated that the CPH could be very valuable as biofuels. By creating a bioeconomy that makes practical use of the discarded CPH it is envisaged that local communities will benefit socio-economically to help alleviate poverty and that electricity can be supplied to communities without grid connection.
Cooperatives and local energy, Dr Alison Mohr
Posted on Thursday 7th February 2019