₦airaland Forum

How Nigeria can become solar super power.

Patrick Owelle on November 19, 2015 4:42 am

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Osinbajo

THERE is a “Green Energy Revolution” underway in Nigeria that can increase prosperity for millions of poor families by harnessing the abundant and clean energy of the sun.

With the right policies in place, Nigeria can easily become a world leader in solar energy and this can also address acute power shortages, and make a real difference in slowing the pace of climate change.

Since being elected in May 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President , Prof. Yemi Osinbajo have outlined the government’s vision for increasing Nigeria’s renewable energy capacity, including a boost in solar power generation from virtually zero to 70 GW. The plan is to achieve these targets by 2020. But to do so, Nigeria needs a National Energy Policy, Regulatory Programmes and innovative financing mechanisms that encourage the development of distributed energy, particularly, applications that combine solar generation with energy storage.

Nigeria has already taken positive steps by announcing very aggressive goals to meet 40 per cent of its energy needs through renewables by 2020. I firmly believe that, with favourable policies and strategic economic investments, Nigeria could meet all of its energy needs through renewables by 2040.

Nigeria is endowed with abundant free solar energy. Using the country’s deserts and farm land and taking advantage of 320 to 350 sunny days a year, Nigeria could easily generate 5,000 trillion kWh of solar energy.

In other words, Nigeria could easily install around 1,000 GW of solar generation – equivalent to 40 times the current peak power demand (about 25 GW) – using just 0.5 per cent of its land. In addition, Nigeria can produce over 100 GW from wind power.

Nigeria is both densely populated and has high solar insolation, providing ideal conditions for the exponential growth of solar power as a future energy source. With GDP growing at about 7 per cent, solar PV is the only renewable energy resource that can bridge the ‘gap’ between supply and demand.

Solar energy can transform Nigeria and help bring about decentralised distribution of energy, thereby empowering people at the grassroots level and eliminating the need for costly expansion of transmission and distribution systems.

How Can Nigeria Achieve Its Economic, Environmental and Energy Goals?
Recent Solar Power projects agreement signed last month by VP Yemi Osibanjo with UK Government/DFID and French Solar Powerhouse, Vergnet points to the seriousness of engagement in Solar Electricity by the Current Administration.

In addition, micro-grids have the potential to change the way communities generate and use energy, can reduce costs, increase reliability and improve environmental performance. Micro-grids can be used to take substantial electrical load off the existing power grid and so reduce the need for building new or expanding existing transmission and distribution systems.

[b]By implementing the following 10 strategies, Nigeria can begin to become a “Solar Super Power”:
Develop National Renewable Energy (RE) Policy – Enact and deploy a comprehensive new energy roadmap or innovative RE policies (e.g., PPAs, Net Metering, FIT, etc.) without delay. In addition, set National Renewable Energy Standards/Policy such as 20 per cent by 2020, 40 per cent by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2040 – to create demand, new industries and innovation, and a new wave of green jobs.

Invite International Developers to meet the revised government targets of 70 GW of Solar and 75 MW of Wind by 2022 and beyond.
Electrifying Transportation – Expedite a move to electrify transportation by encouraging expanded use of Electric Vehicles (EV) and plug-in hybrids, and deployment of solar-powered EV charging stations around the country. Develop and implement time-of-day pricing to encourage charging of vehicles at night and other times when peak demand is low. In addition, launch the public transportation system of the future with zero-emission battery-powered Electric Buses in all major cities to reduce air pollution and reverse climate change.

Energy Efficiency – Make Energy Efficiency a high priority by expediting the development and implementation of cost-effective energy efficiency standards. To reduce the long term demand for energy, engage states, industrial companies, utilities and other stakeholders to accelerate energy efficiency investments such as large scale nationwide use of LED lamps.

Utility-Scale Projects – Phase out conventional energy subsidies, and develop a long term plan to replace fossil and nuclear plants with utility-scale renewable generation.

Innovative Financing Solution – Provide innovative financing (including Tax-Free Solar Bonds or Green Infrastructure Bonds, accelerated depreciation mechanism, and access to credit at globally competitive rates, etc.) to instil more confidence from potential investors and decrease the cost of financing for renewable energy projects. Create and fund a national smart infrastructure bank for renewable energy.
However, for Nigeria to meet its future energy needs, it can no longer afford to delay deployment of solar energy.[/b]
• Owelle is the Managing Director, PSC Solar, United Kingdom

Babzrockman:
Power generation and transmission is a serious challenge to our economy. #OperationLightUpNigeria

LordMecuzy:
If Buhari can solve the problem of Power in Nigeria, surely he'll surely get my vote in 2019

'I thought Linus Mohamed and apc said that buhari body. odour has made the light to be constant ?

Ngasky:
this is not feasible technically. it is an attempt to deceive the government. the cons against solar or wind power are greater than the pros

Ngasky:
this is not feasible technically. it is an attempt to deceive the government. the cons against solar or wind power are greater than the pros

Gbawe:
I agree about the cons which is mainly the relatively huge initial outlay required to produce renewable energy. Long term use will claw back costs and the energy produced is 'clean'. While financing is a challenge, it is by no means an insurmountable impediment.

America's 240-acre sun farm

The Wild West's new pioneers are harnessing the billion-dollar potential of solar power.

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The Cimarron Solar Facility in New Mexico will be the biggest of its kind in the US when it is finished early next year.

By Charles Laurence
9:00AM BST 21 Oct 2010


to one side of the fence, a herd of bison grazes against a backdrop of low mountain peaks, the unmistakable landscape of America’s West. To the other, a workforce in yellow construction helmets and orange safety vests is bolting solar energy panels to steel tresses in rows several hundred yards long.

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The 500,000 photovoltaic panels will generate 30 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 9,000 homes


The flat, glass-coated panels, each one measuring four feet by two, shimmer in the sunlight. The men are laying half a million of them, each one guaranteed to last for 25 years, over 240 acres of land, and the overall effect, seen from above or at a distance, is of a lake in the arid grasslands, or the mirage of one.

We are in northern New Mexico, miles from pretty much anywhere, under one of those big skies that distort the eye’s perspective, making the ring of mountains seem a lot further away than it is and the giant Cimarron Solar Facility appear smaller than it is. At closer quarters the builders look like cotton-pickers on some strange science-fiction plantation.
Nearby is Cimarron, a genuine Wild West town on the Santa Fe Trail. It offers a creek, a crossroads and an old hotel called the St James, where Billy the Kid once drank, and in which the bullet holes in the ceiling have been preserved. It is a four-hour drive north-east from Albuquerque, the big city of New Mexico, winding through mountains that are the southern tail of the Rockies.

It is an oddly remote place to find a solar energy plant that will be America’s biggest when complete early next year. On the drive here we have seen several spreads of solar panels, increasingly familiar from rooftops everywhere, laid out in fields about the size of a market garden. They are powering small factories and, in one case, a small shopping centre.

But the Cimarron Solar Facility is on a different scale: it is what the Americans call a 'utility’ – a power station – and it is immense.

Its 500,000 photovoltaic panels will generate 30 megawatts of electricity, enough, in the popular measurement, to power 9,000 homes. It is costing about $250 million to build, significantly less than a gas, coal or nuclear power station, which can easily exceed $1 billion. And it represents a sea-change in America’s energy business.

America has been notoriously devoted to hydrocarbon fuels. Big Oil, Big Coal and big Texan hats in the White House were seen by the rest of the world to be keeping it so, whatever the global interest. Oil barons funnelled money to scientists ready to pour doubt on the science of climate change, and conservative Republicans led the charge to pour scorn on those such as the former Democrat vice-president Al Gore who were urging Americans to rethink where their energy was coming from.
'Energy security’, a catchphrase in Washington, had more to do with invading Iraq, battling terrorists and drilling off pristine coasts than cutting consumption and exploring 'renewables’. Things – quite suddenly, it seems – are changing.
'When we come fully on-line, we’ll be the biggest solar facility in the country,’ says Justin Bloch, the plant manager for First Solar, America’s biggest solar energy company, which is building Cimarron. 'But not for long. We are even having a race against our own company, which is building another site in Arizona. There’s a huge growth in interest, and investment is accelerating. We’re talking about billions of dollars.’
Plants are already planned or in the early stages of construction in most of the sunbelt states of America, rising in multiples of power output from Cimarron’s 30 megawatts to 40, 80 and, in Arizona, 300. First Solar itself is opening a plant capable of 80 megawatts near Toronto in Canada, an area not much noted for sunshine.

This stuff has been happening for years: the hills beyond the Cimarron plant are scarred with strip mines, abandoned oil derricks and ghost towns, relics of boom-and-bust exploitation, and Decker, along with countless others, is left wondering whether the solar panels are offering a clean, green future, or, with their government grants and subsidies, just another way of making a buck.
The truth is, they are both. Which energy sources have the best potential will become clear in the next 20 years or so. Nuclear energy, wind, hydro­electric and biomass will all play their part. Business follows the money, and the money is suddenly leading to green energy in general, and to solar in particular.
'We have the sun,’ says Alex Levine, a clean energy expert at the Sierra Club, America’s most vocal conservation group. 'We should become one of the world’s great solar generating locations. It’s the cleanest renewable energy available, and its role is growing as the incentives to build grow and the policies are put in place.’
America’s workers, beggared by recession, offer the most down-to-earth of all readings of the future. They learnt long ago that opportunity does not come to them, and that they must go to it. That is why Frank Harrington is living in a tent while he sends his money home – he has six sons between eight and 23 – and why he knows what to do next.
'I’ll fold that tent,’ he says, 'and I’ll get down to the next solar plant they build.’

Ikengawo:
Your intelligence is appreciated but you should also mentions that nigeria drills gas, sells it for peanut prices then buys it back from the west at triple the worth and cant manage to produce electricity from its own gas plants

Gbawe:
@Ngasky. Article is lengthy so feel free to scan over the parts in bold print.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/8075872/Americas-240-acre-sun-farm.html

Gbawe:
@Ngasky.

pacino26:
This one na yellow elephant project.

Ngasky:
unfortunately in oil market the owner have limited control of the price. the customers have greater control. added to the cost of transportation and refining thats why we have the above problem

Ngasky:
all the same have they shown or talk about the batteries? they did that intentionally . and assume those panels will last 25 years which i personally doubt based on experience ( I've been with solar energy since 1988) a conventional plant have a lifespan of atleast 50 years.
definitely battery cannot last for more than 5 years and think of even the weekly cleaning of panels (if there is no sandstorm or dusty weather) and other maintenances.
ask anyone with personal experience on these solar /wind energy he will tell you what he goes through in the name of saving

Ngasky:
in the long run have you consider the enormous challenge of maintenances? cleaning millions of panels at least weekly. replacing millions of batteries every 5 years? loss of thousands of hectares of precious lands. huge cost of replacing faulty parts e t c
mr owelle is only out to enrich himself to the detriment of the nation

Ikengawo:
how about Norway thats also an oil and gas country? Are the excuses valid for them? As we speak buhari appointed a minister of communication that wears gloves to not shake women's hands. With this level of progressive thought in nigeria wtf is osibanjo talking about? Put things in context. Nigeria can barely manage to have roads, but were ready to be a solar super power? Seriously

mikolo80:
can be cleaned with wiper
don't need batteries for concentrated solar thermal. do you have any other use for ½% land in the DESERT

Ngasky:
no battery for sure?! BATTERIES ARE A MOST REQUIREMENT IN SOLAR INSTALLATION
where is the desert land in Nigeria ? i think you didnt travel across the country.

Ngasky:
in the long run have you consider the enormous challenge of maintenances? cleaning millions of panels at least weekly. replacing millions of batteries every 5 years? loss of thousands of hectares of precious lands. huge cost of replacing faulty parts e t c
mr owelle is only out to enrich himself to the detriment of the nation

Cleaning dirty panels with commercial detergents can be time-consuming, costly, hazardous to the environment, or even corrode the solar panel frame. Ideally solar panels should be cleaned every few weeks to maintain peak efficiency, which is especially hard to do for large solar-panel arrays.

"Cleaning can cost up to five dollars per panel," says Curran. "That might not sound like a lot of money, but if you have 52,000 panels it adds up quickly."

Robust Coating

To solve this problem, Curran and his nanophysics group in the Institute for NanoEnergy developed a self-cleaning nanohydrophobic material that coats the solar panel to maintain peak efficiency over longer periods of time.

"The coating itself is very robust," says Curran. "An actual covalent linkage holds it to surface of the panel, creating a strong chemical bond. This is a big advantage over spray-on coatings, which gradually degrade with time."

Inverter with battery bank in solar farm system
I need to tell all of you a solar farm with batteries ensure that the power delivered to the inverters is stable DC power. The way these systems are installed is. The solar modules are connected to DC to DC charge controllers. The charge controllers are connected to the battery banks. The battery banks are connected to large 3 phase inverters, the inverters are connected to 3 phase transformers that convert the volts and amps into KVAs. The KVA can go to the substation or transfer station. The transfer stations are grid connected to either the main grid or mini grid or micro grid. The batteries are supplying the inverters stable volts and AMPS. Thus is a cloud or something that would shade the panels the power stays the same because the batteries are the stable source of electric power. Thus there is no power loss due to clouds, fog or rain.

These type of systems we call "Solar Power Plants", not solar farms. Solar farms have no storage thus a solar farm is totally dependent upon the sun to supply power directly to the inverters.

mikolo80:
pikin wen no comot from him papa farm go think say na im big pass. I'm sure you did not read my post and COMPREHEND