Use solar potential to solve power problem, Powercell tells FG

Tayo Balogun, CEO, Powercell Limited, has urged the incoming government to make the most of the solar power potential in Nigeria in addressing the persistent power problem facing the country.

According to Balogun, gas-fired power plants generate about 70 percent of Nigeria’s electricity, while the balance is derived from hydro-power plants – Kainji and Jebba power stations, which have a combined installed capacity of 1,330 megawatts (mw).

Balogun said this at the firm’s Power System Consultants’ Forum held in Lagos, recently, noting that “it is not sustainable that we are depending heavily on natural gas for power generation because gas will be exhausted, but the sun will be there forever.”

Nigeria, as we know over the years, has continued to experience incessant outages in power supply due largely to shortfall in gas supply. This year, power generation has dropped more than seven times below the 3,000mw mark

“As long as there is sun, solar power is there. As long as we breathe in air, wind power is there. Those are the two sustainable renewable energies, and we have them in Nigeria. So, we need to harness them to power the whole country,” he said.

Balogun put the blame of low utilisation of the country’s solar power resources on “the unwillingness of government to put in adequate policy, resources and investment,” saying “we have what it takes; from the South to the North, we have enough sunlight to generate electricity.

“Solar power is still at its infancy in Nigeria,” as Powercell was gradually making inroads into the solar power industry.

“We are also going to partner with the Energy Commission in order to improve solar power development in the country. We have dropped our proposal with the commission on how we can use solar to augment power supply in Nigeria.

“It is possible to power the whole country with our sun. There are a lot of places in the country where we can have solar power installations. But it depends on government regulation,” he said.

He however noted that the current administration had a number of solar power initiatives, but implementation was the issue, saying “I hope that the incoming government will use solar power to solve our energy problem.”

Balogun said “we are also here to know how Powercell and consultants can work together in Nigeria. Our doors are still open to recruit more partners to cover the rest of Nigeria and other parts of West Africa,” while speaking earlier at the forum, where electricity consultants and other users of power equipment were sensitised on the UPS manufactured at ABB’s factory in Switzerland.

“When we brought ABB to Nigeria, we were trying to see how we can cover the whole country. We are recruiting partners that we can work with across the country. Once you are a partner of Powercell, you are also a partner of ABB,” Balogun said.

ABB operates and maintains local presence in 20 countries in Africa because of the potential of the continent, according to Ahmad Awad, Middle East and African regional manager of ABB, in his presentation.

“In Nigeria, we have Powercell as our local partner. Our factory in Switzerland known as Newave was established in 1993 and acquired by ABB in 2012. We launched the first modular UPS in 1998 and we are the first to launch this new technology. Our third factory was built in 1968 and acquired by ABB in 2012. We also do industrial UPS for the oil and gas sector,” Awad said.