Renewable
energy and steady power supply
By Tive
Denedo
The call for
renewable energy is part of the global unrest and the expression
of the dissatisfaction with the state of the environment for which
Nigeria has signed series of treaties to assist in improving locally.
It is a clamour for efficient solutions to the rape of nature
through the emission of all types of harmful gasses in the quest
for industrialization. Renewable energy will ensure an improvement
in the quality of peoples life, protect the climate, renew the
industrial sector through the creation of more jobs, avoid external
cost and save on long-term costs through a system that truly utilizes
local raw materials. Renewable energy would help to renew the
350,000sqm of land in the North that Nigeria has lost to desertification
while also helping to halt the desert that is moving furiously
to the South at a speed of 6km per year. It will also help in
the conservation of forest and non-forest resources in the Niger
Delta where lack of access to gainful employment is causing violent
resource wars, raising the specter of poverty, high infant mortality,
rise in maternal mortality, poverty and general underdevelopment.
It is essential
to understand that the transition is long over due knowing that
the economic, political and social trauma we have experienced
as a nation can be traced to the mindless dependence on fossil
fuel. Nigeria is gradually descending into darkness and the rising
level of unproductivity in the industrial sub-sector can be linked
to the inability of the state energy-generating agency (NEPA)
to meet the energy demand to power industries and domestic appliances.
The volume of energy from the combined plants of NEPA at Egbin,
Afam, Shiroro,Kainji, Sapele etc is barely above 3000 Megawatts
for a nation of 120 million people. Three thousand megawatts is
3,000,000 watts and if that is allotted to about 40,000,000 to
whom light is available each Nigerian is entitled to just 13.333
watts of electricity, which is not sufficient to light a bulb.
The other 80,000,000 are living in darkness. This can easily be
redressed if there is the political will to resolve the crisis
of energy in the country.
The structures
of renewable energy are much more flexible and adaptable to the
environment, than those of fossil fuel energy. Renewable does
not operate a long energy chain with every single link of it depending
on the other and shackling the actors of the economy through high
tariffs and charges. The attraction for renewable is that they
are offered everywhere in the natural surrounding or they are
cultivated there and harvested as biomass. As a system that derives
its energy supply from nature in solar radiation, solar heat,
water, wind and biomass, there are variations depending on the
site or location where it is desired. This will influence the
form of usage from one region to the other. But no matter the
difference one good point about renewable energy is access to
participate and be part of the process offered to the communities
to bring light to their lives.
The sites
where energy is consumed often become identical with where energy
is generated. Energy communities are thereby given the opportunity
to feel a sense of belonging in not only generating the energy
but are completely involved in the maintenance of the facilities.
Applying the "Keeper" philosophy makes communities feel bound
to protect and safeguard what they rightly consider as theirs.
This is unlike conventional energy projects from which people
are so often alienated and can therefore vandalize them because
communities finds it difficult if not impossible to identify with
facilities that are only flying over their airspace. The vandalisation
of NEPA installations is the second major problem after energy
generation that has made light barely available for Nigerians.
Renewable energy gives people the power to control their energy
future.
The localization
of renewable energy facilities is also a testimony to the ease
with which they can be constructed and installed. They can be
used in a flexible way, since any installed modules can work separately.
This means they can be introduced as quickly and it would take
just a week to install the energy system that is needed to power
a three-bedroom apartment. Once installed, its operation is guaranteed;
no outage, no fluctuation and brown outs for 20 years especially
for solar energy generation. There are no heartaches associated
with equipment that are not protected by stabilizers and sundry
gadgets to guard against power surge. All that is required is
to change the battery every five years.
A policy change
that favours renewable energy is a wise political move towards
new opportunities for a renewal of all sectors. It offers new
vistas in energy economy, new economic support, political framework,
education and training. It also brings with it a chance for ecological
industrialization as well as a sustainable energy supply, which
are also the most important pre-requisite to save the nation.
This nation need to be saved let's all join hands to vigorously
promote and popularize the use of renewable energy system in Nigeria.
Tive Denedo is Project Director, Renewable Energy Center, Ikeja,
Lagos.
