Renewable energy in Nigeria

RENEWABLE ENERGY IN NIGERIA
Nowadays, interest have been developed in renewable energy, both state and even small businesses have been said to have interest in the energy.
Renewable energy provides a clean and safe environment for the people. We have all know about renewable energy for some time now, everyday vast amount of sunlight reaches the earth daily and we humans fail to make use of it. In Nigeria, today there is a huge opportunity of producing solar energy. There are six (6) sunny hours that are present per day, the estimated potential is 427,000MW, the distributed radiation is about 19.3Mjm2 .

Working on 5% of the suitable territory in the north and in the centre of the country can get us 427,000MW. In the year 2016, 14 power projects are already being created. Many people do not know that we can do a lot with the sun. even with the availability of solar panels, many still fail to use it as an extra source of energy.

There have been a project about renewable energy in Nigeria. Renewable energy programme is one of the many alternative chosen to fight the menance of climate change. Recently in Nigeria, there have been some sensitization programme and advocacy campaigns by different environmental rights group and non-governmental organization to aid the adoption of renewable energy.

There is also another source of renewable energy which we mostly use in Nigeria, it is the Hydro energy, that is the generation of energy from water. The idea of using water for generation of energy is not new. According to scientist calculations in the future wave energy will be more profitable than wind power. It is noted that the specific power of wave is more stronger than that of wind and countries which are more closer to the seas and oceans will be able to generate up to 5% more electricity from the waves.

In Nigeria, for decades now energy has been gotten from water. 15% of the electricity or energy we use today is being gotten form waves. Even with this, it is still not enough for the over 170million people in Nigeria. Nigeria is a suitable place for adopting wave energy or hydro power. Some of the reasons here will make you believe that.

1. There is a huge amount of rivers and several natural waterfalls in Nigeria.

2. The river system provides 70 micro dams, 126 mini dams. If all of these is potentially developed it will be possible to extend up to 112,500MW.

In Nigeria currently, only 64MW are produced of the 3,500 potential MW of low-power electricity, in the year 2020 they plan to reach 5.9000MW.

Renewable technologies can make indirect contributions to alleviating poverty by providing energy for cooking, lighting and also contributing to education. All of the natural resources where renewable energy can be gotten from, natural is blessed with all of them. The wind, water, tides and geothermal heat, they can all be replenished.

Biomass is also considered as another source of renewable energy. The energy contained in Biomass is produced through the photosynthesis. Another name for biomass is called the “Green Energy”. Nigerians can promote a green environment by making use of the biomass as a source of energy. With the use of biomass, we can conserve the solar energy because we are actually growing plants for the generation of energy.
A tree can simply be burned to get biomass energy, now what you might think here is that they will pollute the environment through the process of burning. Now lets explain this, during combustion, hydrocarbons release heat, carbon-dioxide and water. Carbon-dioxide participates in the biochemical carbon cycle which promotes the growth of other plants and also replenishing the brned biomass, which means burning of biomass with proper organization does not lead to additional pollution of the environment with carbon-dioxide.

Technologies has improved in a way and they have made it possible to obtain liquid and gaseous fuels from wood and other biological materials. In Nigeria, the production of crops is high daily, now lets take a look at the high rate of crops we produce 227,000 tons of waste from which 6.8 million cubic metres of gas can be made. Through the use of plant, you can see that we can generate another source of energy in Nigeria.

Another source of energy that will never be exhausted is the wind which is also known as the Air. The wind is a pressure drop that occurs when the temperature of the air masses change. Many people have learned how to use its power for their economic needs. There is what we call a wind mill, for centuries now many people have used it to grind grain for flour. The highest speed of wind in Nigeria is observed in Sokoto, Kano and places like |Enugu and Lagos state. Average speed is 2m/s in the coastal regions and 4 at and altitude of 30m in the north.

The use of the windmill can be possible in Nigeria, many of us can say that the windmill constitutes a lot of noise, so it is advised that they should be removed from residential areas, they should be taken away. Many people believe that the wind cannot be a source of constant energy to us all, but above all the wind will always be a reliable source.

Windmills are mainly put in places where the gradient of the pressure drop is very high and there is no point worrying about inactivity of the equipment. According to forecast by scientist they believe that by the end of the century one-third of all the needs of the country will be provided by wind power. The wind power plants can be attributed to the speed of their commissioning. All energy producing stations can be built in two weeks and they start producing current which can be used. Only solar energy that cannot be built in a short time.

Renewable energy is very essential to the country Nigeria, it can contribute to poverty alleviation by providing the energy needed for business and also employment. Using renewable energy helps in promoting a healthy environment. In the year 2012, there has been an organization or rather a programme which was tagged Rural Women Energy Security (RUWES). The program was targeted at the rural areas in the country, where energy is not enough to carry out their day to day activities. The aim of the programme was to ensure affordable and sustainable clean energy access to the rural areas.

The programme was carried out and they suggest that widespread deployment of clean cooking stoves and solar lighting system all of them were under the RUWES project. The program would also reduce black carbon emission by helping out to phase single wick keresone.