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Nigeria Turning To Green Energy To Increase Power Supply

by Milicent Atieno
Nigeria Turning To Green Energy To Increase Power Supply

Nigeria is Africa’s biggest economy, and with such title lays an immense amount of industrial activities, ranging from manufacturing, processing, service and lately e-commerce activities. Energy forms the backbone on which all these economic activities are run; factories need power to run, e-commerce platform needs user on powered devices to run and so forth.

Energy supply in the country is still far from satisfactory, despite Nigeria being one of the biggest oil producers on the continent. Although the government has done a commendable job in meeting the energy demand, there is still a lot more room for improvement.

The President Buhari-led Nigeria government has taken a fresh new approach to addressing the country’s energy demand. Nigeria is now turning to clean and renewable sources of energy to grow extra energy supply capacity.

All these were revealed by Permanent Secretary, Power, Dr. Godknows Igali during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with two local investors, Messrs. New Horizons Energy Resources and Messrs. Quaint Global Energy Solutions. The agreement will take the government and the two local investors into exploring the renewable sources of energy projects such as biomass, solar and thermal energy.

During the MoU signing ceremony, Quaint Global Energy Solution through its representative Seun Solesi made the announcement that the company will be getting a $13 million grant from the U.S. Trade Development Agency’s Power Africa Initiative. The funds will go towards carrying out feasibility studies on the viability of the proposed 50MW solar-powered plant to be set up in Machiok, Kaduna State. 50-hectraer piece of land has already been reserved for the project by the Kaduna Government.

On the other hand, New Horizons Energy Resources wants to utilize locally available materials on top of recruiting and training Nigerians in the US in preparation for this project. The project entails setting up a 100MW solar power plant in Nasarawa State, a 300MW thermal energy plant in the Rivers States and a 300-400MW biomass energy plant in Cross River State.

When all the said projects are up and running, the additional energy supply injected into Nigeria’s national grid will increase energy supply throughout the entire country. However, it might be important to point out that there has been a significant energy supply increase in the country in the recent past. All attributed to the anti-vandalism campaign by the current administration and the increased gas supply to thermal energy plants.

If the current administration’s ambitions of adding clean energy sources spoken about above come to pass and is availed to big, medium and small businesses throughout Nigeria. The country may affirm its position as the Africa economic powerhouse, and not just in words but by actions.

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