Consumers ‘go solar’ as power supply remain epileptic

Despite the successful privatisation of the power sector, Nigerian consumers are still groaning about the incessant power outages and epilepsy electricity supply across the country.

Businesses have continued to spend huge amount of money on petrol and diesel to power their generators in order to stay afloat. A good number of businesses have gone under as a result of their inability to sustain the mounting costs of powering their offices and machinery.

While customers are eagerly waiting for a time when electricity supply in the country will be both stable and affordable, individuals and foresighted organisations have begun to explore the option of solar power.

It is said that based on an estimated population of over 170 million, Nigeria requires an electricity generation capacity of 120,000 megawatts to provide lighting and communication to the entire country.

Speaking with BDSunday, Henry Nwagbara, CEO, Hencova International Limited (an ICT firm), says solar energy represents a major breakthrough towards energy independence in the country.

Hencova, which is in partnership with Solynta Energy, believes that with solar Nigerians no longer need to use expensive petrol or diesel generators to power their homes or offices.

Today, many Nigerians are going the solar way because of the immense benefits. It saves consumers the trouble of storing jerry cans full with petrol and diesel in homes and business premises with the attendant risks.

Experts also say that there are an estimated 60 million generators in Nigerian homes and about N1.6 trillion is spent each year to fuel them.

“On average, our solar power systems are at least 75 percent cheaper than diesel or petrol generated electricity – at N22.95 per kwh it is even cheaper than PHCN generated electricity, which now averages N23 per kwh, figure excludes the monthly fixed charge that all users pay irrespective of their electricity usage.

“In fact, the actual PHCN cost is therefore higher than the stated N23 kwh’s with the new tariff that came into effect this June. So, the cost of ‘going solar’ is guaranteed and fixed for at least 25 years. This compares to N90 per kwh for petrol and diesel generators, at current fuel prices,” says Nwagbara, on behalf of Solynta Energy.

According to him, the company offers liberal payment structure of “buy now, pay later” arrangement.

“The company installs the solar infrastructure and the customer pay in instalment, which is staggered for over 18 years. This is to take care of the complaint of customers.

“It guarantees regular supply of light for 24 hours. It supplies homes, hotels, schools, colleges, universities, polytechnics, churches, mosques, industries and corporate organisations. The payment style is simply the European method of ‘buy today, pay later.’ Company maintains the solar for 25 years at no extra cost,” he says.

Hence, some form of solar power has been available for decades, the technology has only recently gained mainstream acceptance and attracted the interest of big-time utility companies. On a per-kilowatt basis, solar power remains expensive relative to conventional sources of energy like coal and natural gas.

Nevertheless, its overall cost continues to shrink at a rapid rate. As solar power becomes an increasingly important component of the country’s “energy mix,” it is worth taking a look at some of its advantages and disadvantages.

Some advantages of solar energy, according to experts, include the fact that it is a clean and renewable energy source; once a solar panel is installed, solar energy can be produced free of charge; solar energy will last forever, whereas it is estimated that the world’s oil reserves will last for 30 to 40 years.

Other advantages are that solar energy causes no pollution; the solar cells make absolutely no noise at all; on the other hand, the giant machines utilised for pumping oil are extremely noisy and therefore very impractical.

Also, solar energy requires very little maintenance is needed to keep solar cells running; there are no moving parts in a solar cell, which makes it impossible to really damage them.

In the long term, there can be a high return on investment due to the amount of free energy a solar panel can produce. It is estimated that the average household will see 50 percent of their energy coming in from solar panels.

Like most things in life, solar energy also has disadvantages. For example, the solar panels can be expensive to install resulting in a time-lag of many years for savings on energy bills to match initial investments.

Another downside to solar energy is that electricity generation depends entirely on countries exposure to sunlight; this could be limited by a countries climate; solar power stations do not match the power output of similar sized conventional power stations; they can also be very expensive to build.

Also, solar power is used to charge batteries so that solar powered devices can be used at night. The batteries can often be large and heavy, taking up space and needing to be replaced from time to time.

Anne Agbaje