Nigerian Engineers Racing to Deliver Sustainable Power by 2020
With more than 60% of its population unable to access the power grid, Nigerian engineers are now racing to devise viable alternatives to deliver electricity to an additional 85 million people or more in less than 12 years.
An email sent to me by one Irene Faluyi-Smythe talked of an event that will rally Nigerian engineers in the Diaspora to return home and take part in engineering development that would deliver sustainable power, and I got interested.
Sponsored and hosted by the UK chapter of the Engineering Forum of Nigerians, the 14 June 2008 conference in London will be looking at means and ways of delivering sustainable power in the country.
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The event will bring together key industry leaders, decision makers, the financial sector amongst others, to highlight the vast opportunities available in the Nigerian power sector.
The Nigerian federal government has a year 2020 national prosperity objective that recognizes that the availability of reliable, affordable energy, especially electricity, is essential for economic and social development.
Currently about 60% of the nations’ population - approximately 85 million people have no access to electricity services.
This means that the west African nation, also the continent’s most populous, will have to use the good services of its engineers to help transform its power sector to address the energy shortage as well as create an environment in which renewable and sustainable energy technology can be effectively developed alongside conventional energy sources.
That is why the race to deliver sustainable electricity is so crucial to demand a London meeting of engineering minds.
“We appreciate the fact that those engineers based outside the country must also take part in the country’s development and complement whatever is done by those who are home-based“, said Faluyi-Smythe.
“This is a great opportunity for investment and capacity building in the Nigerian energy sector through self-participation or partnerships where applicable”.
The organizers of the event dubbed ‘Delivering Sustainable Power Solutions for Nigeria’ say capacity building will provide the engine to drive the much needed economic and social development and improve the quality of life of its citizens.
Already, there is a new wave of investment to increase capacity of the electricity power industry championed both by government and the private sector.
A host of regulatory and sector reforms are now in place to address the many challenges of the sector.
Image credit: Clare Marie at Flickr under Creative Commons
Here’s hoping these guys take up where North American technology leaves off instead of trying to reproduce or duplicate our current grid system, errors and all! We North Americans will have to go through convulsive changes to arrive at an ‘up to solid state date’ system. We should not encourage others to copy the mess we are in.
I pretty much agree with Uncle B, and add my thoughts about appropriate technology. Electricity should only be used by energy efficient necessary appliances, and that would not included hot water. In any place with good solar aspect, solar hot water is preferable. And wnere there is the ability to use cooling apparatus which doesn’t require gas or electricity, that’s what should be done, and it should be done here too, in the powerhogging us of a. If we all had cellars, and evaporative cooling using recycled water, well you get my drift. There is so much we don’t do, and these massive grids fueled by 24hr turbines waste so much at night, when they could be charging battery banks, and vehicles. Planting trees for shade, and wind breaks could help too. But I digress. I just hope that the whole outcome of this effort above is not to emulate the doom’d western culture of consumption.
Wonderful to see them thinking along lines appropriate to newer technologies.
I agree strongly with the above commentors: the hope is that they are not speaking of just a central authority generating power through hydroelectric. Or, are they talking about a leading-edge effort that would empower individual towns using local wind and photovoltaic power.
Beyond that, as also was mentioned, are they trying to imitate the USA style, or truly use more natural processes such as efficient buildings, solar heating, electric vehicles charged off local power, and so on. I hope the latter, as we need more examples and leadership in that area!
I’d love to be able to say, “The US really needs to catch up to Nigerian sustainability efforts.”
“Currently about 60% of the nations’ population - approximately 85 million people have no access to electricity services.”
Shocking. I wish these engineers the best and hope they succeed in their goal. Electricity is a basic necessity for any individual or family.
This is very encouraging news Gavin. I’ve stumbled it and left a review. Nigeria can be an example to all those countries who are simply too slow in doing something about their use of energy to make the industry more eco friendly
Nigeria has the opportunity to learn from the mistakes made in the US and elsewhere, where the model of centralized electricity generation has dominated electrical planning. Nigerians (as well as other countries with less-developed electrical grids) can show the world that small-scale, distributed electricity is the wave of the future.
A similar phenomena occurred in parts of the developing world where people went from having no phones to utilizing cell phones, bypassing land lines. I hope they leap frog over the polluting technologies.
hopefully it works for them, minus greed.