Ghana has consistently missed its household liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) access targets for more than a decade, despite ambitious government policies meant to drive clean cooking adoption.
The government has set three separate goals since 2010 to achieve 50% LPG usage among households, yet the country continues to fall short, exposing gaps in policy execution and access.
According to a report by the Centre for Environmental Management and Sustainable Energy (CEMSE) in 2024, Ghana’s first target in 2010 of 50% LPG penetration by 2015 ended at just 22.3%. A similar goal set in 2012 for the year 2020 closed at only 25% by 2018. In 2017, another 50% target was projected for 2030, but by 2021, usage stood at 36.9%.
The data also reveal sharp inequalities. While more than half of urban households (51.3%) use LPG, only 14.8% of rural households do. In Greater Accra, about 68% of households rely on LPG, but in the Ashanti Region penetration is just 38.1%, and in most of the northern regions it falls below 11%.
Beyond the numbers, many rural areas still lack LPG stations altogether, forcing households to depend on wood and charcoal for daily cooking.
To close these gaps, the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) introduced the Cylinder Recirculation Model (CRM) in 2017 and rolled it out in September 2023. The policy was designed to reduce accidents at filling stations and expand access by introducing community-based cylinder exchange points.
But four months into its launch, most consumers still depend on traditional refilling stations, with little sign of the promised exchange points.
The CEMSE survey, which gathered responses from 112 consumers, found that 74% of respondents had heard of the CRM, but “most of the consumers had not seen cylinder exchange points in their communities and almost all consumers continued to buy their LPG from LPG filling stations,” the report stated.
Industry players share similar concerns. Interviews with LPG marketers in Greater Accra highlighted cost and consultation challenges. The report noted that “building new exchange points attracts costs including land, infrastructure and human resource and the NPA wants them to bear these costs alone which are disincentives.” Some marketers estimated that setting up new exchange infrastructure could cost as much as $300,000.
The timeline for transition is another sticking point. The NPA gave marketers five years to switch to the new model, but they say that is not enough. “It was realized that the five (5) transition period was too short for them to transit and that 10 years could have been appropriate to plough back their profits into building exchange points,” the report stated.
The CEMSE report recommends tax waivers and rebates to reduce costs for marketers, stronger consumer education campaigns, and a phased rollout beginning in rural and underserved areas. Without these adjustments, the report warns, Ghana risks missing yet another clean cooking target by 2030.
For now, Ghana’s clean cooking agenda remains caught between ambition and reality: households know about safer options but cannot access them, while marketers weigh high costs against uncertain returns. Until these barriers are resolved, millions of Ghanaians will remain dependent on polluting fuels, despite over a decade of government promises.
