The Nation Newspaper

Tag: renewable

  • Quest for renewable energy

    SIR: The world marches towards December United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP21) Paris Climate Summit to know what effort governments are taking on how to cut emissions for the post 2020 period. Ahead of the conference this year, Nigeria inaugurated a nine-man inter-ministerial committee to prepare the framework for its active participation. Nigeria’s commitment should go beyond attending alone but also ensure national implementation of the climate change policies with reference to its obligation under the climate change convention and also the development of national policy on climate change.

    Some countries have promised to cut their emission. EU for instance promised to cut theirs by 40% by 2030 and Switzerland has promised 50%. For now, Nigeria has not made any declaration on percentage reduction on its climate emission but awareness on the need to shift from fossil fuel to renewable energy is on to save lives and the nation’s economy. Nigeria cannot ignore the need to reduce harmful effects of climate change and the call for an end to human activities that contribute to it. Shifting from fossil fuel to renewable energy will directly contribute to poverty alleviation by providing the energy needed for businesses and employment. Renewable energy technologies can also make indirect contributions to alleviating poverty by providing energy for cooking, space heating, lighting and contributing to education by providing electricity to schools.

    Nigeria must begin to institutionalise its development of energy efficiency and renewable energy with appropriate goals and objectives to increase the use of renewable energy resources in areas where grid extension is too costly and where opportunities for the use of renewables is needed. Nigerian government does not need subsidies for fossil fuels as it impedes the pace of the transition to renewable energy use. Likewise, market transformation mechanisms similar to that adopted in the developed countries which will encourage more rapid development of its energy efficiency and renewable energy potential should be explored.

    Active participation of Nigeria in the global climate change deliberation to negotiate a better deal for Nigeria and Africa is therefore necessary. The suggestion that oil-producing countries should be compensated for their projected income losses in the event of their energy diversification should be vigorously argued and canvassed. Nigeria can only be sure that its interest is protected in the emergent global reduction strategy if it increases its level of participation in climate awareness.

    It is imperative that full attention be paid to ways through which the Nigerian economy can be diversified and steered away from fossil fuels both in terms of production and consumption. No oil spills, no climate change, no radiation danger, no nuclear waste – renewable energy is simply the energy we can trust. We can achieve a Nigeria with 100 per cent renewable energy.

    • Bakare Wale,

    Ilorin, Kwara State

  • Experts seek inclusion of renewable energy development in agric

    The Provost, Federal College of Agriculture (FCA), Akure Dr. Samson Adeola Odedina, has  said a robust national plan to encourage renewable energy projects in the agricultural  sector will open up the rural economies and reduce the cost of doing business.

    Odedina said  sustainable energy is needed for agricultural transformation. According to him, energy is needed in all aspects of agricultural and food production, processing, service provision and livelihoods improvement.

    Sustainable energy solutions, he said,  provides the key to improving energy poverty among the rural poor. These include sustainable interventions such as biomass for cooking, drying and heating and food processing.

    To this end, he said the college  is  ready to implement projects through collaboration with partners to provide sustainable energy solutions for the agricultural industry.

    He said the college has a blue print to help accelerate the rollout of renewable energy projects, adding  that  the  school  can  help  farmers  identify areas that may be suitable for energy development.

    For instance, Odedina said the  school has developed a successful  biogas project that can help farmers to run biomass power generation system.

    He explained that the biomass energy project, championed  by the college is produced from cow and poultry wastes and that the system  requires less maintenance and fewer inputs and is cheaper and more sustainable.

    The college promotes biogas digesters for cooking and lighting. He said the college envisages a transformed agricultural industry that meets the needs of the rural and urban poor, small holder farmers and provides transition to modernising agriculture.

    The potential of land-based renewable energy to support profitable farming, while contributing to energy security, he noted, cannot be emphasised.

    Odedina stressed the need to support renewable energy projects to help farmers not connected  to the  national  grid reduce the cost of electricity production and diversify  sources of power generation. He also encouraged the youth to take farming seriously and added that it is important for the youth to take training courses as ones offered at the college  in order to get the required technical skill to excell in the farming business.

    He  said FCA  is  good   because of its provision of quality human resource for the agricultural sector, integrated community development programmes.

    He said the college  efforts is contibuting immensely to improving food security, poverty reduction and environmental conservation.

    Vice-President(Agriculture), Association of Small Business Owners of Nigeria(ASBON),Mr Stephen Oladipupo said the  government  needs  to   boost the private sector and support to tap new energy sources to ease power shortages.

    He  said  tackling  power supply   issue help companies unlock their potential and create the economic opportunities that Nigerians  are eager for.

    He  said  Nigeria  has an opportunity to improve the quality and quantity of agriculture growth by  developing renewable energy.

    He  said the  government  can  harness  the enormous potential of the nation  by investing in agricultural innovation.

    According to him,  improving  renewable energy,  will  support profitable farming and underpins traditional agricultural production.

    Renewable energy,  he   added,   makes  farm businesses more resilient and better able to manage volatility in both the weather and in farm prices.

    According to him, the  nation’s   economic prospects hinge on its ability to meet fast rising demand for energy and securing access to  millions of  people who currently lack it.

    He highlighted the importance of reforms to land use and agriculture, adding that the sector faces significant risks but it also has enormous potential to become part of the solution. Innovation in the sector, Oladipupo said has the potential to change the lives of millions of people.

  • Let’s focus on renewable energy

    Sir, IN 2008, I had the rare privilege of visiting the Warri refinery in Delta State. What I saw stunned me, particularly as several administrations before this one had often grappled with issues related to power, energy and how this affects our life as a nation. I was also very surprised that for several years, millions of naira that were being allocated for turn-around maintenance, TAM, of those refineries were monies being used to refurbish a magnificent edifice of what can be termed scrap metal.

    I was also to find out that these refineries were indeed sold but because of the affection that our people have for those old pieces of metal, that sale was reversed. Yearly, those big sums of money are still being spent on turn-around maintenance even though we import fuel and pay subsidies to those who import refined fuel.

    Sir, I don’t think it makes sense to continue to dole monies to a group of faceless people for the TAM of refineries that have not turned around our economic fortunes. What Nigeria should instead focus on today, is not to concentrate on these refineries. We should focus on investing very massively in the area of renewable energy, and this is simply because many countries today are discovering that cheap energy can be harvested from a rich variety of sources and these sources – the sun, water, wind, and biomass – are in abundance in Nigeria. Apart from that, our greatest customers like the United States have stopped buying oil from us and all of this is within the context of the diminished importance of the Oil Producing and Exporting Countries, OPEC, influence in regulating the worldwide production, import and export of oil.

    Already, the focus of the incoming administration seems to be on reducing the pump price of fuel. It should have not. It should be thinking of downsizing and creating a ministry of renewable energy development.

     

    By Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku

    Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice, ANEEJ

    Benin City, Nigeria.

  • Can renewable energy ignite consumers’ hopes?

    Can renewable energy ignite consumers’ hopes?

    Getting gas to fire the power plants has been a Herculean task. Unreliable supply infrastructure and pipeline vandals have continued to compromise its distribution to various plants. The authorities are, however, looking at renewable energy as an alternative. Will the  diversifying of sources of power supply improve electricity supply? Assistant Editor CHIKODI OKEREOCHA asks.

    It’s an idea whose time has come. The rethink in favour of diversifying sources of power supply to guarantee improved electricity supply to Nigerians and operators in the industrial sector is coming at an auspicious time. The strategy, which seeks to explore alternative power sources such as renewable energy such as coal, solar, wind, and biomass, is coming at a time the excitement and optimism that greeted the unbundling of the sector.

    However, the handover of the sector to private investors has brought agony and frustration to consumers as there has not been any visible improvement in electricity supply more than a year after the sector was privatised. Rather, electricity supply has worsened and tariff gone as high as 100 per cent in  Africa’s most populous and largest economy.

    Although the Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, has continued to plead with the consumers to be patient, saying that it takes a long time to build power plants. According to him, issues of pipeline vandalism and getting gas to power the plants have been tasking.

    The Minister, who spoke with reporters in Lagos, said: “Vandalism is taking a toll on us. A situation where our own compatriots vandalise the oil and gas pipelines, especially the gas pipelines that supply gas to the power stations, since 70 per cent of all of our power generation is from gas-fired turbines and 30 per cent is from hydro. We have not been doing coal, we have not been doing renewable; we have not been doing biomass, so we really are hamstrung. So, the government is now working on diversifying to make sure that we have a good, robust fuel mix.”

    Noting the need to think out of the box, Nebo disclosed that licences had been issued to investors interested in generating electricity through coal and solar power. According to him, the government was working towards generating 10 per cent of the country’s electricity from coal.

    The Nation learnt that under the plan, government would build coal-fired plants in Enugu, Benue, Kogi and Gombe states. The plan, it was learnt, kicked off about a fortnight ago when the Federal Government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with One Nation Energy Platform Ltd. for the production of 500 megawatts (MWs) coal-fired power plant in Enugu.

    Nebo signed for the the government, while the Chairman of the company, Dr. Uzoma Obiyo, signed on behalf of the company. A statement by the Ministry described the agreement as a welcome development for the government’s quest for a robust energy mix that would support the nation’s aspiration for development of the power sector.

    The statement noted that the coal-power project will also provide stable power devoid of challenges of sabotage from vandals. It said citing the coal powered plant in the Enugu area was a welcome development as Ugwuaji, a settlement in Enugu State, houses one of the biggest transmission sub-stations in the country.

    It also described the coal deposit in Nigeria as very clean, and that the processing of the mineral resource for energy delivery would not be a cumbersome process. It further said the Southeast zone alone had enough coal deposits to deliver 5,000 Mw of coal fired power to Nigeria.

    Earlier, the government through the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) granted an operating licence to Trombay Power Generation Limited for a 500 MWs power plant to be located at Wajari village on Dadinkowa Road, Yamaltu Local Government Area of Gombe State.

    Chairman of NERC, Dr. Sam Amadi, who handed over the licence to the company in Abuja, noted that coal power plant “is becoming important in the effort to diversify our fuel source.”

    Dangote Group is also investing a whopping $250million in three coal-fired power plants in its cement plants in Obajana, Kogi State, Ibeshe in Ogun State and Gboko, in Benue State. The company, last year, imported its first consignment of coal from South Africa.  Dangote Cement Managing Director, Devacumar Edwin, explained that the decision to look towards coal fired power plants was informed by the worsening situation of power supply caused by continuous drop in gas supply to power generating stations.

    Edwin said: “As you know, the gas and the fuel oil supply situation is going from bad to worse every day and all the manufacturing industries and all the power plants are affected.”

    He added that because of the difficulties the companies that bought the power plants are experiencing as a result of inadequate gas supply, there are fears that they might not be able to settle their obligations to the banks. He said to continue hoping without taking action will amount to watching one’s investments go down the drain.

    “We are trying to be proactive because if we keep slacking, nobody will come to our aid. So as much as we are going to appeal to the government for help, we have made investment so that our business will continue to thrive,” he said, adding that the Group’s investment in coal has created opportunities for the sector and that the move will reduce the company’s cost of production.

    He, however, said the group was looking at exploring the opportunity in the local coal industry as supplies from within the country would be cheaper in the long run. For the group and other investors in coal-powered electricity generation, the local coal industry holds lots of promises. For instance, Nigeria has about 22 coalfields spread over 14 states, including Adamawa, Anambra, Bauchi, Benue, Cross River, Edo, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Kogi,  Kwara, Nassarawa, Ondo and Plateau states. Available geological data suggest that Nigeria’s coal reserves, which can be described as proven and capable of being exploited in commercial quantities are about 639 million tonnes.

    Also, the inferred reserves – resources present, but with a less assured reliability of commercial recoverability – are about 2.75 billion tonnes. Interestingly, Nigeria’s coal, according to experts, is unique because of its low sulphur and ash content. It also has low thermoplastic properties, making it very attractive for power generation.

     

    The imperative of

    renewable energy

     

    At various fora, Nebo said pipeline vandalisation is the major reason for the challenges of power supply in the country. He explained that about 2,300MW was lost in the past few months due to the vandalism of five gas pipelines that supply power to the national grid.

    According to him, the affected pipelines include the Escravos-Lagos Gas Pipeline System (ELPS) with a generation capacity of 800MW and the Trans-Forcados pipeline with capacity of 800MW.

    Others are Trans-Niger pipeline with capacity of 500MW, the Alakiri-Onne gas pipeline and Chevron gas plant with capacity of 2,672 MW, which were also affected.

    At the last count, about 20 ruptured pipelines have been identified, all due to sabotage, according to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). The corpoation reported that saboteurs were responsible for the destruction of Escravos gas pipeline in 2013. It also said the Escravos-Warri stretch of the ELPS and the Trans Forcados crude pipeline were also destroyed, adding that investigations by the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC) shown the pipelines were punctured. “The cumulative effect of the above interruptions is a real degradation of power supply to Nigerians,” NNPC said.

    However, pipeline vandals are not the only ones wrecking havoc on the nation’s electricity supply. Persistent low water level has also compromised the hydro-power dams. The Minister, however, assured that rehabilitation was ongoing at the Kainji and Shiroro dams to upgrade them.

    Nebo, during a visit to The Nation as part of his tour of media houses, also said the government was thinking of picko-hydro that can be powered by the smallest stream to generate power at least for a little community of people.

    The government has also begun the building of the 700 MW Zungeru dam and will soon begin work on the 3,050 MW Mambilla power plants, both of which have been on the drawing board for decades. At least 17 small and medium hydro power plants are being developed across the country.

    It is expected that when the Kashimbilla power plant is fully functional, it will generate an additional 40 MW, while the Dadinkowa dam will rake in 34 MW.

     

    Solar, biomass to the rescue

     

    Although the Federal Government, The Nation learnt, is planning to add 2,483 MW of electricity to the national grid this year through renewable energy sources, part of it would come from solar. As Nebo pointed out, one of the celebrated milestones in the power sector is the flag-off and commissioning of Operation Light-up Rural Nigeria projects in three rural communities of Abuja, namely Durumi, Shappe and Waru. He said residents in those villages, who hitherto had never seen electricity, marked uninterrupted solar power supply for one year.

    Already, plans have reportedly reached advanced stages to replicate the projects in hundreds of communities across the country, while also encouraging the private sector to key into it for wider spread.

    Similarly, biomass is increasingly becoming attractive as an alternative energy source. According to Nebo, the option would ride on the huge waste generated in major cities across the country such as Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Kaduna and Ibadan, among others.

    “We can aggregate these and put more power plants here and there, and feed them directly to the distribution network of the country and that is embedded generation and distributed power,” the Minister explained.

    Another alternative energy source that holds promise is wind energy. For instance, Nigeria has wind plant in Katsina State. However, the project, which is over 97 per cent completed, ran into a hitch following the kidnapping of the French national in charge of the project. But the Minister expressed hope that the project would be inaugurated soon.  He said there was no reason some parts of Nigeria would not benefit from wind energy.

    According to him, Jos in Plateau State and Katsina in Katsina State have a lot of wind velocity to support wind-powered electricity.

     

    Renewable energy policy

     

    For electricity consumers, the renewed hope in renewable energy received more impetus from the National Policy on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. The Minister said Nigeria, which hitherto did not have a renewable energy policy, now boasts a draft policy. The Minister said the policy has been taken to the National Executive Council (NEC) for approval.

    Presenting the Draft National Policy on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency at a stakeholders’ workshop in Abuja, Director of the Electrical Inspectorate Services (EIS) in the Federal Ministry of Power, Abayomi Adebisi, said that under the policy, 8,188MW will be achieved with Renewable Energy (RE) by 2020 on a medium term, while the long-term target is on the realisation of 23,134 MW by year 2030.

    Adebisi said RE would contribute by 1.3 percent in the year to the national grid with a corresponding increase of 8 per cent and 16 per cent, between 2020 and 2030. “While large and small hydropower would contribute 2,121 MW and 140 MW to the renewable energy generation this year, it is also expected that solar accounts for 117 MW, with biomass electricity at 12.3 per cent,” he said.

    He also added that the policy development was being facilitated by some partners with a grant from GIZ, a German agency. “We sourced for grants from GIZ, then we pooled over 30 documents from people who had once done something on renewable energy. We got a committee of experts to develop the policy, and the draft was approved by the ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREE) in May 2013,” Adebisi explained.

  • ‘New policy on renewable energy coming’

    ‘New policy on renewable energy coming’

    To stem gas pipeline vandalism, the Federal Government, according to Minister of Power Prof Chinedu Nebo, is working on an energy efficiency policy to diversify sources of power supply. Nebo, who spoke during a visit to The Nation, said the government was, looking at power sector challenges, such as pipeline vandalism, estimation billing and energy insecurity. To improve power supply, the government is considering diversification to solar, wind and biomass. EMEKA UGWUANYI was there.

    In view of gas pipeline vandalism, why don’t we concentrate on solar and wind energy, which are sources that cannot be vandalised, for power supply?

    We cannot continue to do business as usual but do it unusual and that is why we are going solar. The wind energy is critical and important but once you measure the wind velocity and you get five metres per second, you will be able to drive many of the turbines but some of them are designed in such a way that you wouldn’t get much power if the velocity of the wind is not so high. For instance, if you have 10 metres per second you can get 10 megawatts (MW), but if that drops to five metres per second, you will not be able to get up to 3MW from the same turbine. So, it is calculation of the wind, integrating the velocity of the wind into the design. Some of these ones that come with helical wind turbines, among others, are more efficient than the regular ones and there is no reason why some parts of Nigeria will not benefit from wind energy. Jos in Plateau State and Katsina in Katsina State  hasve a lot of wind velocity. We have a wind plant in Katsina, the problem there is the kidnapping of the French national who was in charge of the project and it is over 97 per cent completed, which I hope will be commissioned very soon.  But I think that even more important than wind for Nigeria is solar because every part of Nigeria is amenable to solar power and even biomass considering the kind of waste generated in Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Kaduna and Ibadan, among others. We can aggregate these and put more power plants here and there, and feed them directly to the distribution network of the country and that is embedded generation and distributed power.

    The National Integrated Power Project (NIPP), among others, is supposed to supply substantial power to the grid, up to 15,000MW. What is happening to the project?

    When all the 10 plants under NIPP are done, it will add about 4,700MW to the national grid and not 15000MW. But the problem we have in Nigeria is, I’m sorry to say it, military rule took us back so much, because training as the art of governance is not in the military, otherwise, Nigeria’s infrastructure could have been developed much faster and better than it is today. Nigeria today is number one economy in Africa but South Africa has a population of 43 million and they generate 40,000MW while Nigeria has a population of 170 million and we have 4,500MW. So where do you start? You cannot do it overnight. If we were to generate per capita as South Africa is generating today, we should be generating 160,000MW. But I assure you, get all the General Electric (GE), Siemens and Chinese Power in this world together, put them at work and charge them for maximum delivery; they cannot deliver 160,000MW in five years.  All the power companies in the world cannot give you 160,000MW in five years but embedded generation can give reasonable generation, though not up to that level but at least the level that will give most Nigerians power. That is why we must think outside the box. NIPP project can only give us 4,700MW in total, so we need a lot more and that is why all the new independent power plants (IPPs) that are being licensed, eventually by the grace of God, will take off. Also when the NIPP was conceived, there was no concomitant development and deployment of gas infrastructure to supply gas to the plants to power the turbines and they are all gas-fired turbines.  But working with this administration’s gas master plan, we can comfortably say that essentially all the NIPP plants now have gas infrastructure. In other words, once gas is available, we can power all of them and that wasn’t the case a few years ago. In the past, there was no mention of connecting those plants to gas.

     On solar energy

     Nigeria didn’t have renewable energy policy but we have now finished our draft and have consulted inter-ministerially. We have held inter-ministerial workshops on the panel working on the renewable energy because we felt it is not just enough to set up renewable energy but also ensure energy efficiency. So the policy coming out is renewable energy and energy efficiency policy for the country. We have perfected it, and defended it before the economic management implementation team, and now it is to take it to the National Executive Council (NEC) for approval. But I noticed that when the memo was brought, we hadn’t sought for the concurrence of the Attorney-General of the Federation. So, I told them, package this to the Attorney-General of the Federation, get their concurrence and input, so that we will use their input to amend what we have, and it will be taken to the NEC, otherwise, it will be shut down the very first day you bring it to the council because they will ask where is the opinion of the Ministry of Justice and we don’t want that problem. So that policy is coming but the media can help us popularise it. I try to live by example. I don’t have a generator in my house. If you come to my house, you will see a few solar panels, just to show that these things are workable. In the day time when there is no light, the solar panels will give you light, at least for lighting points in the entire house. If you have enough room, you can make it to power refrigerators and air conditioners. We use a lot of air conditioner in Nigeria and we need a lot of power to do that. So in solar, you need a lot of area to power your house to the point of utilising solar for air conditioning and refrigeration. So, we want to make it mandatory that every new house coming up will have solar panels at least for the lighting because about 35 per cent of all of Nigeria’s consumption of electricity is lighting. If we power every home with solar and cause them to use LED (light emitting diode) bulbs, it save s 20 per cent of the energy consumption. The implication is that by not using 1000MW, you are producing 1000MW for the country and industries can use them, so that is part of the reasons we need this policy. It is being perfected and it will soon be approved but we will also expect that and I plead with you the press to help us  popularise this. If you can use solar to power your house for lighting and charge your telephones at the cost of less than “I better pas my neighbour” (the smallest generator set), why do you put petrol or diesel and you inhale the fumes, poison your lungs and that of your children, and you are paying to poison yourself whereas in solar and wind, you don’t do that.  We are also thinking of picko-hydro that can be powered by the smallest stream to generate power at least for a little community of people. These are some of the things we are working on so that we don’t depend on gas because with gas if vandals decide they can throw Nigeria into darkness, they can do it, especially with 70 per cent of all our generation coming from gas. That is why we must do coal, solar and wind where amenable and we must continue to increase hydro wherever possible and also biomass for areas we can do waste-to-power like in Lagos.

    Metering inadequacy and estimation billing

    One thing about that situation is that none of these companies inherited debt, government gave them a clean slate. The debts were moved to NELMCO (Nigerian Electricity Liability Management Company). But when the tariffs were designed, they were not actually effectively cost-reflective, so there is no way the system under private governance will be able to raise enough funds to continue to stay afloat. That is part of the problem but the reason for this is losses. There are technical losses from generation to transmission, to distribution, and to supply. Some of the losses are due to faulty equipment and ageing equipment and infrastructure, and some because of non-optimisation of the route for delivery of electricity. But the most serious losses are commercial losses but we have reduced technical losses substantially. So technically, we are not losing a lot but commercially much. Many Nigerians get power and they don’t pay for it. The distribution companies (DISCOs) are not collecting enough money. They (DISCOs) may look at you, and say you look well fed, you can pay more and they slam a big bill on you. They may look at another person and say, he may not be eating a triangular meal let alone a square one, and they give him a smaller bill. At the end of the day, they come up with just amorphous averaging that has nothing to do with technical and scientific reality and that is why we must meter everybody. The meters we have are not smart meters. It is only recently  we started getting smart meters. So it was possible for them to override those meters and that is why we are moving to smart meters. That way, you can only consume as much as you can afford, if you are consuming so much, you learn to shut down your air conditioner when you go to work as well as lightings that are not being used, among others. We are moving to solve all these problems. But between November 1, 2013 and now, we found out that the commercial losses are huge. Power sector cannot guard against these losses without metering.  Less than 60 per cent of Nigerians are metered, how do you collect your money? So commercial losses are huge and unfortunately, somebody has to pay for it. And unfortunately again, it is those who are paying that are penalised to pay for those who are not paying. That is why the government said we must push the regulator – the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), to make sure that these companies, which made promises to provide meters and other things, to start doing them. But government has decided not to wait for them to start and has given them one million meters to continue from there to spread meters to the people. It is this commercial losses, which made DISCOs not  to be able to collect enough that made the Central Bank came up with a package working with the Ministers of Power and Petroleum Resources, Chairman of NERC, synergising together to provide facilities to them to smoothen the situation, stabilise the market, infuse a little more capital and allow these DISCOs to pay over a 10-year period to make sure that the market is solvent.

     Energy insecurity

     Energy security and food security are critical security system that every country must have but we have a peculiar situation. These oil and gas pipelines pass through very unfriendly terrain, so the deployment of soldiers, naval men and the Nigerian Civil Defence Corps, among others to take care of them will not solve the problem and that is all we have been doing all along. How do you secure over 100 km of pipeline in an unfriendly terrain, under water with these men, it is not possible. What we are doing which the president has bought into, is getting companies do a digital mechanism that will connect every centimetre of the pipeline and give you the latitude of having sensors that will immediately indicate the particular part of the pipeline that they are poaching. And some of those sensors can activate a shrieking noise that will  make the vandals know that somebody is watching them but these things are very expensive, but the government is working on that. The length of this pipeline and the terrains they pass through,  are  not amenable to physical protection. Another complex area is the stealing and vandalisation of transformers by young men. They cannibalise the transformer, sell them as scraps at a pittance, while the replacement of such equipment costs tens of millions of naira, besides the darkness they throw electricity consumers into. We are working on all these to make sure that Nigerians have light.

     

  • ‘Renewable energy solution to Nigeria’s energy crisis’

    ‘Renewable energy solution to Nigeria’s energy crisis’

    For so long, the issue of epileptic electricity supply has been a source of concern for many. A number businesses and manufacturers have suffered setbacks because they do not have power to meet their demands. Many therefore make use of generators but this makes the cost of production very high.

    Thankfully, people are beginning to see the need to explore other alternative sources of energy-renewable energy.

    This was the crux of a discussion at a public forum recently.

    The forum tagged: ‘The renewable energy option for entrepreneurs and stakeholders’, drew participants from far and near.

    Incidentally, Dr. John Isemede, Director General, Nigeria Association of Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), who is one of those promoting the need for renewable energy was a facilitator at the forum.

    To the NACCIMA boss, there is a need for a fundamental shift in the way energy is consumed and generated in the country.

    The scale of the challenge requires a complete transformation of the way we produce, consume and distribute energy, while maintaining economic growth, he stressed.

    “Today, we are talking of biomass renewable energy and people are using it in other parts of the world, they are using wave tied to electricity”, informs Isemede.

    He goes on to inform that with the trend around the world, it is not only hydropower that can be used to generate electricity. “People use wind, solar and other sources. With globalisation, there is no home advantage in Nigeria as industrialists believe that the major part of production cost is taken by energy cost apart from the cost of borrowing, distribution and marketing. We all know that what determines success in business is the cost of production but we do not have that here.”

    He adds; “Why is it that the products produced 16,000 kms away in Asia is cheaper? Countries need to plan in the area of their specialisation. We started cocoa export in 1910 yet we cannot process cocoa. It is not that we do not have capacity but we do not have the power. It is cheaper to produce this in other parts of the world. It is sad that we export what we need and import what we have.”

    Sadly, he continues: “We export cocoa pods to bring in chocolate. So we create jobs for other people while our children are unemployed. I went to Netherlands and saw that the biggest cocoa plant is there. There is no cocoa house and no cocoa farm yet they are doing all this. So there is a big challenge. In the past, the price of cocoa was good and proceeds were used to build the Cocoa House. Today, the price of cocoa cannot build the foundation of the Cocoa House. Why are we still importing foods? We do not have energy to process the food produced and even if we have the energy, things are not put in place properly. We have to go back to agriculture because it would give us food; it would give us jobs as well as give us sources of alternative energy.”

    Isemede said countries around the world would not consider the issue of power as a problem, adding that South Africa, for instance, was generating 48,000mw and also supplying Namibia with energy.

    He adds that what the country currently generates could not take care of industries in Lagos State alone and stressed the need to look inwards for alternative sources of energy.

    Buttressing the fact that alternative source energy was safer and cheaper, he said: “Life expectancy in China is the highest in the world now. But today what we are talking about is between 50 to 52 years. A young lady came around and was talking about noise pollution but I told her that she was a smoker and she was surprised. I told her that she was a secondary smoker because a person in a block of flats with eight generators is a secondary smoker.”

    Agriculture, he also stressed, would lead the nation to the proverbial Promised Land. “We have to move agriculture from sustainable agriculture or subsistence farming to value chain agriculture. Those who have been to Kenya know that if you do not have a farm or a house nobody would give you a wife. How are you going to feed her? If you are working in Nairobi and you get your salary, part of it goes to NAGOGO and to your farm. But today all our emphasis in this country is on oil and the electricity that we are talking about, we are generating just 4000 megawatts, which is not enough for Lagos Island alone.”

    Getting the best, he stressed, can happen when there is a total transformation in terms of resources and personnel. “How can you transform a nation without transforming the people? Things are changing in Europe. We are talking about cashless economy and we are talking about a N5,000 bill. There is confusion somewhere. The Transformation Agenda is about Public Private Partnership. Government cannot do it alone. There is nowhere in the world where government has full control of the people and the economy.”

    Isemede goes on to talk about energy and the perceptions of the average Nigerian on the subject. “To an average man, energy is electricity. The technology of the energy we are talking about is not the old technology. As a young man we were using the phone on the table we dialed and from there some of us were going to NITEL with International Direct Dialing (IDD) and from there we moved to the different level of wireless. We should not confuse ourselves with the technology of electricity and that of mobile phones. For instance, there are no wires connecting this wireless system to the main switch, the pole and transformer to the power from Kainji. That is why technology is complicated.”

    To make the required changes, Isemede advised that students and the young ones need to be carried along effectively. “One thing I used to say is that students have been left behind in most of our actions and calculations. As a young undergraduate, the Central Bank of Nigeria was our lecture hall and we go there on a regular basis for statistics. We also went to the World Bank office for records. Most of the things we do now, we do not think that our children and those yet unborn should be carried along. “

    Technologies, Isemede added, are changing and the entity called Nigeria needs to change with time. “Kainji was commissioned in 1959 and my father took me there as a baby and I was able to see things. Three years later, I was taken to Akosombo in Ghana. Today, what legacies are we leaving for our children? How are we building the capacity of our children”, he asked rhetorically.

    Isemede continues: “The essence of going to school is not to Google but to learn and carry out research. In our days in the university, we used to carry three suitcases, two for our books and one for wears. But today the difference is the case. Then if you had a mere pass, a lot of multinationals would be able to build on that.”

    But sadly, he says, this is not so any more. “Now first class degrees have become a generic product that they do not even have management trainee programmes for anybody. All you have today is come and take a job and we give you a target. That is where we are today.”

    Prior to joining NACCIMA , Isemede was an international marketing professional who had worked with Unilever International as the Export/Head of New Market development , Promasidor , Federal Ministry of agriculture , the United nations and Dangote where he was Group Head, Exports and International Business Development Manager, West Africa.

  • ‘Why telcos shun renewable energy for base stations’

    Cost of acquiring land, solar panels and vandalism are some of the reasons telecom operators are not embracing renewable energy as alternative energy source to fossil fuels which is costlier and less environment-friendly.

    Chief Executive Officer, Prostar Global Energy Limited, Hyacint Udemba, said subscribers should not expect any reduction in end user tariffs because the Federal Government failed to provide the requisite infrastructure and security to the operators. According to him, the threat of vandalism is one major factor operators cannot embrace the use of renewable energy even in the face of rising cost of petroleum products.

    “The challenges associated with providing renewable energy to the BTS are many. Number one is the capacity of the BTS. The number of solar panels required will occupy a large surface area and there are problems getting land. Telcos pay heavily to all manners of persons, governments, others. To get a piece of land to install solar panel which will be able to serve about 12,000 watts of power required by each BTS, you require a solar panel of not less than 10,000 watts and that will occupy a surface area of between 50 and 60 square meters. This is not easy,” he explained.

    Udemba, who spoke at the weekend in Lagos, also decried the level of insecurity in the country.

    “You have to provide security to the solar panels because they will be stolen. If people steal bridge rails, iron pipes used to protect people from falling into the Atlantic Ocean, if they steal street lights, they certainly will steal solar panels. So another factor is insecurity,” he said.

    He recalled that the late General Sani Agacha attempted to use solar to power the communication system of the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) but was frustrated because the panels were sabotaged by unscrupulous elements.

    He said: “When the late General Abacha was around, he commissioned the use of solar cells to power the railway communication gadgets but within six months of installation, they were all vandalsied. Abacha was resuscitating rail transportation then and you cannot have a functional rail without communication links as the trains move from one station to the other. Now to make sure that communication is enhanced, solar was used.” He lamented that no sooner had the panels installed than vandals ensured that it never saw the light of day.