ALTERNATIVE POWER SOURCE; TAPING THE UNTAPPED POTENTIALS IN NIGERIA

Nigeria as a nation stands good chance of tapping the untapped benefits that abound in alternative power sources. With over 150 million people and a large number of resources with the potential of generating power, Nigeria has no choice but to benefit from the power of alternative power supply.

The following are sources of conventional energies OIL, GAS, DIESEL, and FUEL. Conventional sources of energy are predominantly derived from crude oil. One fact that is worrying to a lot of stake holders in the oil and gas sector of Nigeria is the scientific projection that Nigeria’s crude reserve will dry up in the next 35 years or so. This is why all hands should be on deck as far as alternative energy is concerned. Conventional power supply is mostly supplied by government and other public agencies. This makes it vulnerable to inefficiencies that characterize public run businesses. Below are short comings of public power supply system:

SHORT COMINGS OF PUBLIC POWER SUPPLY

UNREALISTIC BILLS: public power supply system is full with faulty billing system. Consumers of power in Nigeria are furnished with unrealistic billing system. I always bills that range in thousand for periods when there are no supply of electricity. The worst part of it is that bills that come during this period of non supply of power usually outweigh the ones that are supplied when there are power supplies.

UNRELIABLE POWER SUPPLY: epileptic power supply is a significant feature of public power supply. People of Nigeria runs mostly on generating set. An average Nigerian family operates generating set 18 hours of the day out of the 24 hours we have in a day. What an appalling condition?

DILAPIDATING POWER EQUIPMENT: power supply equipment used by government agencies are outdated and obsolete thereby making it almost impossible to guarantee steady power supply.

ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS (OZONE LAYER DEPLETION,): the air pollution caused by generating set used to generate power cause environmental hazard. These environmental hazards pose great threat to human lives.

OTHER SOURCES OF POWER SUPPLY

Alternative sources of energies are renewable energies that are modular and scalable in nature. By modular and scalable, I mean energies that can be moved from one place to another as the need arises. ETHANOL, SOLAR, WIND ENERGY, THERMAL ENERGY, RENEWAL ENERGY, etc are some alternative power supply that can be used to generate power. The position of Nigeria and her potentials place her in a strategic position to fully benefit from the benefits of alternative power supply.

BENEFITS OF ALTERNATIVE POWER SUPPLY

CHEAP: alternative power supplies are relatively cheap compared to other forms of power generating system. Though, the initial cost of installing alternative power supply equipment like solar system is costly, but the subsequent cost savings covers the initial costs.

MORE RELIABLE: provided you keep your alternative power generating equipment in good condition, you will get any amount of power you need at any point in time.

COST SAVING: solar system will save the cost of fueling power generating equipment. The money that would have otherwise been used to fuel generating set will be used to finance other projects that would add to the developmental process of Nigeria.

ENHANCED CONSUMER SATISFACTION: alternative source of power will ensure that end users get the right kind of satisfaction needed from the monies expended on power.

Solar energy society of Nigeria and renewable energy society of Nigeria have great role to play in the educating the general public on the danger of solely relying on conventional sources of power supply and the benefits of embracing alternative power supply. I must commend the Lagos state government for organizing a seminar today (25^th day of July 2010) educating the good people of Nigeria on what we stand to gain if we can simply tap the potentials from alternative power supply.