Ban on substandard electrical appliances starts Nov. 1

Effective November 1, 2023, imported electrical appliances that do not meet the minimum energy efficiency performance standard requirements will be banned. 

The standards are contained in the Standards and Labelling Regulations of the Energy Commission.

The move is in line with the new regulations to prevent the country from becoming a dumping ground for 20 electrical appliances, including home, office and industrial electrical appliances.

These came to light in Accra yesterday when the Energy Commission held a stakeholders meeting for importers of new electrical appliances.

The affected appliances include electrical cookstoves, television sets, refrigerators, air conditioners, bulbs, electric kettles, solar panels, computers and set-top boxes (television decoders).

Others are ventilating fans, storage water heaters, industrial fans, renewable energy batteries, public lighting, improved biomass, electric motors, distribution transformers and inverters.

Context

In the past, the commission had been enforcing mandatory appliance standards and the labelling regime under which importers and retailers of room air conditioners, compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) and refrigerators were required to import and sell only products that met minimum efficiency and performance standards approved by the Ghana Standards Authority.

However, in November last year, the Energy Commission received approval for 19 new regulations on the importation and manufacture of electrical appliances and renewable energy products in the country.

Since the passage of the laws, importers and traders have been given a year’s grace period to transition to dealing in products that meet the minimum energy-efficient performance standards.

Stakeholders meeting

The Director for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency of the commission, Kofi Agyarko, said the enforcement of the laws would commence on November 2, this year, a day after the law takes effect on November 1, 2023.

Apart from helping save energy and the economy’s higher electricity demand, he said the regulations would protect the environment and safe­guard the health of citizens from air pollution caused by increased power generation.

Since 2005, Mr Agyarko said Ghana had been the only country in sub-Saharan Africa with standards “but with the introduction of more standards Ghana is ranked among the top countries in Africa that have appliance standards and labelling regime.”

He said a whole lot of substandard appliances and obsolete technologies came into the country because the owners of those technologies were looking for a destination to dump them.

“Technology is moving and moving very fast.

So periodically, we are saddled with old technologies that are not fit for purpose.

That is why Ghana is investing resources in an attempt to insulate our jurisdiction from dumping because dumping is rife in Africa and other third world countries,” the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Director of the commission said.

Data submission

A Senior Officer at the Energy Efficiency Regulations Unit of the commission, Edwin Kwasi Tamakloe, said under the laws, officials of the Ghana Standards Authority and the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) would work with officials of the Energy Commission as enforcement officers to ensure goods coming into Ghana met the required standards.

The new regulations, he said, required that manufacturers and importers of the appliances seek authorisation from the commission, have instructions written in English and meet energy efficiency standards.

Group CEO of Maxigate Group, Tesla Africa, Dennis Ofori Carter, said the enforcement of standards was a laudable move as it would protect both consumers and businesses in the sector.

He, however, urged the commission to intensify its education and awareness creation to ensure that the message was disseminated to all.