Solutions to Nigeria’s electricity problems invite all sources of energy mix
Babatunde Fashola, Nigeria’s minister for Power, Works and Housing had raised some dust when he said Nigeria’s electricity problems cannot be solved by magic foreshadowing need to explore an all source energy mix strategy to solve Nigeria’s power challenges.
To put this in context, Fashola had allegedly said a serious government will fix power in six months. But, the 55 year-old minister and former governor of Lagos State has denied this. “I have heard that I said that electricity problem will be solved in six months. I have never made the statement,” he had told the Nigerian Television (NTA) shortly before the first anniversary of the Buhari administration.
Two matters arise from these accusation and denial. The first is that Nigeria’s electricity problem has resisted past attempts to solve them. The second, which is a corollary to the first is that the solutions of the future will have to avoid the pitfalls of the past, as it sifts noise from substance in the power sector.
Following from the second matter that has arisen from this line of reasoning, Nigeria needs a mix of energy solutions that exploits all available energy sources ranging from coal, gas to renewables.
Coal continues to power bigger economies such as South Africa’s. Eskom in Lephalale Limpopo, South Africa, October 07, brought unit two of its Medupi Power Station online to produce power, the national power utility announced in a statement on October 09.
The second unit was loaded to 400MW of power. It is the fifth of six units at Medupi to be synchronised to the national power grid. Once completed, Medupi power station is expected to consist of six units, with an installed capacity of 4 764MW. The first unit of the coal power station, near Lephalale Limpopo, went online and into operation in August of 2015. Coal then remains an important energy source.
Global demand for gas fired power plants is growing too but with uncertainties linked to gas demand, this forecast rides on wobbly edges. In a long-term outlook published in June 2017, Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicted that gas’s market share in global power generation will drop from 23 percent in 2016 to 16 percent by 2040, and that gas-fired power generation capacity will start to decline after 2031. BP has highlighted “risks to gas demand” as a key uncertainty, including the possibility that consumption plateaus by 2035, “squeezed out by non-fossil fuels.”
The energy transition is “fundamentally a force that cannot be stopped,” Royal Dutch Shell Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said last year. “It is both policy and public sentiment, but also technology that is driving it.” Oil demand will probably peak in the 2030s or 2040s, he said, while “gas will not peak before the 40s if not in the 50s.”
Nigeria needs innovative, clean energy solutions to accelerate its economic growth. Nigerian small and medium enterprises that improve energy access through off-grid energy solutions spanning solar, wind, hydro, biomass and gas technologies are receiving attention.
Investors are putting money behind off grid solutions (powered by the sun, water and geothermal sources) to Nigeria’s power challenge. An estimated $410 million (N25 billion) worth of funding has gone into the Nigerian off grid space this year, data compiled by BusinessDay show.
STEPHEN ONYEKWELU