This post was originally posted on LinkedIn at: https://www./solution-nigerias-power-problem-people-rich-tanksley

Almost everyone in Nigeria puts their AC on the lowest possible temperature setting (usually 16 or 17 degrees). There are various reasons for this, but mainly it's because few people understand how a thermostat works or even that the number corresponds to a temperature.

If you put the AC on 16 or 17, the compressor will run non-stop, consuming the entire 1300 watts all day.

If you put the AC on 26, when the room reaches 26 (assuming your AC is sized correctly, and you don't leave your windows open) the room will reach 26 degrees and the compressor will turn off. Now only the fan will be running (not the compressor). The fan uses a maximum of 10 watts.

Let's look at the implications of having all the ACs in Nigeria on the lowest setting all day and night.

A Typical 1.5 HP AC uses 1300 watts when the compressor is running. So that is 1.3kwh for each hour. Multiply that by 12 hours a day and you get 15.6kWh per day. So each year it will consume 5,694 kWh if it runs 12 hours a day.

Now, assume you set the AC to 26 instead of 17 and the compressor only runs 75% of the time. When the fan is running (the compressor is off) it consumes no more than 10 watts. (we won't even count this because it's so little) So you cut the compressor power consumption by 25% to 4,270.5 kWh per year if you don't put the thermostat on 17.

That is a savings of 1,423 kWh a year per AC if you put it on 26 instead of 17.

Interesting. Now let's speculate on the number of ACs in Nigeria.

There are about 112 million of the estimated 180 million Nigerians living in poverty. So we can assume they don't have ACs. Maybe 1/2 of the remaining 68 million still can't afford ACs. So we are at 34 mil. And let's say only 1/2 of those want ACs. So that leaves 17 million people with ACs. We could even assume 2-4 ACs per person and throw in hundreds of thousands of ACs in offices, but we'll just round down to 10 million ACs in Nigeria.

So the quick math: If the people operating the 10 million AC units in Nigeria kept their AC units at 26 instead of 17 it would save 1,423 x 10mil or 14,230,000,000 kWh each year. Converted to megawatts, this is an energy savings of about 14 million MWh per year.

The Egbin Thermal Power Station in Ikorodu (Nigeria's largest) produces 1,320 MW so about 11.6 million MWh per year if it operates at full capacity (it doesn't). Total power production capacity in the country fluctuates between 4,000 and 2,600 MW.

So you can see that the incorrect use of that remote control to set the AC on 17 consumes more than all the power from Nigeria's largest power plant.

What is the solution. Simple: teach people how to properly set the temperature on their ACs. A huge PR campaign would do the trick. Combining this with guidelines on proper sizing and insulating would also help.

Next I am going to explore the amount of water used to wash cars in Nigeria, where 60 million people lack basic access to water.