A famous Nigerian Musician Burna Boy once said, “If Dangote still dey find money, them who I be not to find Money”. Man is an insatiable animal that is why the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer. The Nigerian power situation is now becoming that of the poor gets poorer compared to the USA. Only good government policies can take us to the promised land.
National power generation statistics shows that in 2018 the peak power demand was about 22,330mw but 4900.8mw was the peak generation achieved. The highest peak generation ever achieved in Nigeria was 5222.3mw, attained in the year 2017 to serve a population of over 180 million people.
If compared to the US, you would see why the rich would keep getting richer. According to Wikipedia:
In 2017 the total installed electricity generation summer capacity in the United States was 1,072.46 Gigawatts(GW), down 1.8 Gigawatts from 2016. The main energy sources for electricity generation include:
- Thermal/Fossil 736.33 GW down 13.85 GW from 2016
- Nuclear 99.6 GW was flat from 2016
- Hydropower 79.79 GW down 0.1 GW from 2016
- Wind 87.6 GW up 6.3 GW from 2016
- Solar 26.97 GW up 5.02 GW from 2016
You would notice the rise in the renewable energy sources of power generation in the USA. These improvements are only possible because of good government policies. Governor Janet Mills recently signed into law three major pieces of bipartisan legislation that will help usher in renewable energy in Maine, create clean energy jobs, and fight climate change. The US senate is also introducing Renewable Electricity Standard Act.
CONCLUSION
From the above analysis it is evident that renewable energy alone can salvage the Nigerian Energy crisis. If in 2018 the Nigerian peak power demand was about 22,330mw and the USA generated 26.97GW from solar alone in 2017. It is my own opinion that if we harness the sun power, we would be able to:
- Manage our energy crisis
- Fight climate change
- Create clean Energy Jobs