Hello readers.
Welcome to #Women4theClimate on CleanbuildVoices!
It’s another Wednesday and you know what that means. You guessed right! Another interesting reveal of our Woman Crush of the day.
She is none other than the amazing Salma Okonkwo who has been championing the renewable energy cause in Ghana amidst the debate on climate change, alternative energy resources, and poverty.
Salma Okonkwo is the founder and CEO of Blue Power Energy, an energy service company with a special focus on renewable energy.
Seeing as solar PV is a cost-effective choice for energy in sub-Saharan Africa due to falling investment costs and the region’s good solar resource potential, Blue Power Energy aims to develop a sustainable energy opportunity in Ghana and other sub-Saharan African countries, where energy is an important factor for economic growth.
Blue Power Energy developed a $200m 100‑MW solar PV farm in early 2019 in Northern Ghana, the poorest region in the country. Another 100 MW was installed by the end of 2020.
Through Blue Power Energy, Salma has created hundreds of jobs for women. She finds it important because she wants to improve the quality of life of these women (who are migrating in large numbers from rural areas to Accra and carry goods for customers in the city market) and increase the educational opportunities available to them and their children.
Salma’s biggest motivation behind founding Blue Power Energy is to increase access to electricity, create employment, and uplift the standard of living for many people in Northern Ghana.
Up to this point, the company provides solar energy to about 50,000 homes in Ghana and has efficiently integrated renewable energy in the country’s energy sector, with a goal to provide 100% renewable electricity to its national grid to make it more energy sustainable and improve the quality of the lives of the Ghanaian people.
Salma has more than twenty years of experience in Africa’s energy sector and possesses deep and wide-ranging expertise in renewable energy.
Her expertise is evidenced in the capacities in which she has served which include Founder and Chairwoman of Puma Energy Ghana; Chief Executive Director of UBI Group; Managing Director of UBI Petroleum; Ghana Country Director for Sahara Energy; and Founder and Board Member of Blue Star Exploration.
She has received several awards for her immense contribution in the energy sector, including Female Energy Personality of the Year at the Ghana Energy Awards 2019.
Watch this space as we’ll be back for another edition of our #Women4theClimate.
