As a beneficiary of the Millennium Development Authority’s (MiDA) Race to Retrofit intervention under the Ghana Power Compact Program, the Korle Bu Teaching hospital is set to make annual savings of GHC2.1 million on its electricity consumption.

As part of its objective to promote energy efficiency in Ghana, MiDA is embarking on a project to replace and retrofit high consuming electricity appliances found in six selected public institutions including the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital with energy-efficient ones.

The intervention at the nation’s biggest hospital has seen the replacement of electrical appliances in four departments of the hospital, which are the Child Health department, the Medical block, the Central Lab and the old and new Accident and Emergency Units of the hospital.

The replaced appliances are fridges, bulbs, fans and air conditioners in all the four departments.

Speaking to GhanaWeb.com at a press tour of the Hospital today, January 10, 2019, the project consultant, Faustina Afriyie revealed that an energy audit conducted on the four departments revealed an annual consumption of 2.8m kW-h out of which 1.6m kW-h is going to be conserved annually as a result of the intervention.

Translating this into monetary value, the Project Manager at MiDA, Richard Owusu said the hospital stands to make savings of GHC2.1 million annually as a result of MiDA’s intervention.

The project also includes the installation of real-time energy monitoring systems which will also help engineers of the hospital to monitor, pre-empt and effectively resolve electrical issues at the various blocks.

Speaking on the rationale behind the project, the project engineer for Energy Efficiency and Demand Side Management (EEDSM) at MiDA, Priscilla Adjei-Darko, said the aim of the EEDSM project is to change the behaviour of Ghanaians on energy savings in the various institutions and in homes.

She said before arriving at the seven beneficiary institutors of the Race to Retrofit Project, MiDA solicited from the Electricity Company of Ghana data on high consuming institutions in the nation’s capital. She said out of the data received MiDA sent out letters to twenty institutions to solicit their interest in the project out of which only six including the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital responded.

The five remaining institutions which are also benefiting from the project are the Department of Urban Roads, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, Adabraka Polyclinic and the University of Ghana.

The total cost of the Race to Retrofit project is estimated at $3 million and is financed by the people of the United States of America through the Millennium Development Authority.