..Calls for women inclusion in clean energy

Charity Nwakaudu, Abuja

A social enterprise firm – Solar Sister Nigeria (SSN), and Solar Energy Nigeria programme have harped on the need for women to play a crucial role in scaling up clean energy access, especially in undeserved communities across Nigeria.

Speaking at a media advocacy/workshop in Abuja recently, the Country Manager, Solar Sister Nigeria, Olasimbo Sojinrin, said that Nigeria and Africa as a whole are faced with energy poverty with 600 million people in the continent living without electricity. Sojinrin also said that 728 million people depend on fuels such as charcoal and firewood for cooking, while over 10 million businesses were adversely hampered by lack of power.

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She said, “What we have in Nigeria is that one in three people actually not connected to the national grid and so they are in perpetual darkness, half of the population live in rural areas in which one in four  people have access to electricity, the huge majority of 70 percent people affected by energy poverty are women and girls.

Families spend 30-40 percent income on household energy compare to 5 percent in the USA.
According to her, over two-thirds of Nigerians are dependent on biomass for cooking, regretting that indoor air pollution was the third highest killer in Nigeria. “So what solar system does is to give them access to modern, clean energy which they can use to light their homes as well as cook. Solar Sister produces durable and affordable lights, cook stoves, lamps and so on,  so the beneficiaries of this organisation have been able to impact the lives of the communities in which they stay, thereby people don’t have to be in darkness.

“If you go to these communities, you will find out that activities stop around 7pm but with the introduction of solar lamps, you find out that businesses are opened till longer. We have lot of economic activities that have been impacted just by simple solar lamp with the life changing effect of light in their communities,” she said.

Solar lamp provides our people with the opportunity to have clean access to energy, people have resulted to using kerosene lanterns, candles and so on which have so many adverse effects, if you look at what government is saying about how much it will cost to extend the grid to all these communities, you find out that just a small solution of a small solar panel and a lamp in the house can at least give the household light for them to be able to do what they need to do, it might not replace the grid but it’s a good alternative for communities that have no electricity”.