From Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
Vice Chancellor, Dominican University, Ibadan, Oyo State, Prof. Abel Olorunnisola, has said renewable energy is central to the growth and development of the Nigerian economy.
He stated this at the opening of a five-day capacity building workshop, organised by the National Centre for Energy Efficiency and Conservation with the theme ‘Energy Efficiency, Energy Audit, and Energy Management for MSMEs’ held at the International Conference Centre, University of Ibadan.
Olorunnisola said energy is a pivotal input for economic development and that the use of energy drives economic productivity and industrial growth of a country.
He said energy remains central to the operation of many modern Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria. He said numerous MSMEs in Nigeria suffer from energy insecurity, with the attendant negative impacts on several indices of their growth and development.
“It has been realised in recent years that reliance on fossil fuels has significant negative implications with respect to energy supply and climate change. Hence, renewable energy technologies are beginning to play an important role in the global energy transition process. It is expedient to address the major constraints to renewable energy becoming a viable alternative to appropriate categories of MSMEs in Nigeria.
“Increased information about renewable energy technology may facilitate its use by MSMEs. However, the major constraints to renewable energy becoming a viable alternative during outages is cost. Sharing energy capacity to achieve economies of scale could facilitate this, but as with generator sharing, would require good management.”
Olorunnisola said Nigeria, which is one of the largest economies in Africa, is endowed with large oil, coal, peat, natural gas, hydro, solar and wind resources. He said the potential to “generate more than 13.5GW of electric power from existing plants, compared to the country’s peak demand of 8.25GW on most days, however, available energy capacity only amounts to around 4GW, which is insufficient for a country of over 195 million people.
“Most of the energy requirements for heating and cooling come from traditional biomass and waste, which account for 83 per cent of total primary production. The rest is from fossil fuels (16 per cent) and hydropower one per cent. Wind and solar are also utilised, but at an insignificant level at present. The consequences of inaccessibility to modern, affordable and clean energy include poverty, poor health services, decline in economic growth, poor research development and socio-economic imbalance.”