The Ministry of Energy has launched a solar lantern manufactured by Ghanaian engineers, which is designed to minimise the reliance on electric power to provide light for domestic use. The solar lantern, designed by Wilkins Engineering Limited, a local firm, has two-watt panel for charging its battery. The Technical Advisor to the Minister of Energy, Mr Clement Abavana, who launched the lantern, Goshen solar lantern, at the Engineers Centre in Accra on Monday, said the lanterns would also assist people in the rural areas where there was no electricity. He said the Goshen solar lantern, which could reduce the pressure on the national grid had a lifespan of 10 years. Mr Abavana said the cost of operating solar lantern did not in anyway compare with the cost of kerosene or candles over the same period. He said the country had to ration power because the Takoradi Thermal Plant developed a fault while low rainfall had also affected hydro power generation in the country. Mr Abavana said the only option left was to exploit products that depended on the inexhaustible sunlight as its source of energy. He said unlike kerosene and candles which produced carbon dioxide, the solar lanterns were environmentally-friendly and did not cause domestic fires. The Chief Executive Officer of Wilkins Engineering, Mr Omane Frimpong, said the company was currently manufacturing 10,000 lanterns per month and noted that when the demand for the lanterns increased it would increse production through the running of more shifts. He said the company had taken measures to ensure that no company or individual could counterfeit the products, which were of high quality. Mr Omane said the lanterns were specifically designed to cater for the needs of households while the second product of the company would target churches and offices. He said the present load shedding by the Electricity Company of Ghana was not achieving its desired results because the gadgets on the market still heavily depended on electricity. Graphic