By Idowu Oyebanjo
Recently, there has been an increase in the agitation for the deployment of alternative sources of energy for the generation of electricity in
*President Buhari
There is a general tendency to follow the crowd
by copying the trend in developed economies and most times this yields positive
results. However, this will only be the case after a careful consideration of
local circumstances. The Western world is persuading Nigeria to embrace their
much needed market for Renewable Energy System not because they want to help,
but because of the trade and economic benefits it will bring them in terms of the
gains from the delivery of goods and services that this will bring, huge
financial gains from the cost of expatriates they will export to us just like
in the oil industry now taken over by their own mostly less educated
professionals compared to locals, economy of raw materials in the industry they
really need in their own environment, making Nigeria Nigeria , they should provide funds and expertise
to build, operate, maintain and transfer ownership of thermal plants (OCGT and
CCGTs) in Nigeria
There is no doubt that the capacity credit (I
use a technical term here) of most of the renewable electricity systems is low
compared to that of conventional generation which in simple terms means they
cannot be relied upon for grid operations exactly as electricity generated from
conventional energy sources such as oil, gas, coal etc. Power System is
difficult to explain to non-power engineers especially those who hear about
what takes place in other countries and believe Nigeria should copy them hook
line and sinker without looking at local circumstances.
