Babatunde Fashola, Nigeria’s minister of power, works and housing, has said Africa must intensify efforts at improving transmission grid for renewable energy to be effectively developed on the continent.
The minister spoke on Monday at the opening of a two- day Conference on Renewable Energy Development organised by the Centre for Petroleum, Energy Economics and Law (CEPEEL ) of the University of Ibadan, with theme: “ Developing Renewable Energy in Africa; The interplay of Technology, Economics and Law.’’
Represented by Farouk Yusuf, the director of renewable and rural power access department in the ministry, the minister said Nigeria as a committed member of both the United Nation, African Union and ECOWAS has adopted several international treaties and policies which promote the use of renewable energy.
Fashola said this was in line with the national vision to provide incremental power, and then steady and uninterrupted power.
He said the Federal Government recently approved an integrated energy MIX targets under Electricity Vision 30:30:30 which targets generation of 30 GW in year 2030, with 30 per cent from renewable energy sources.
“Africa has trillions standard cubic feet of natural gas reserves, billions of barrels of crude oil reserves and billions of tonnes of coal, but Africa has even greater abundance of renewable energy resources. Unfortunately, of the nearly 1.5 billion people estimated to lack electricity supply world over, half live in Africa.
” Nigeria alone is estimated to have over 90 million people living without electricity supply, according to the World Bank,’’ he asserted.
The minister said power generation capacity in the country currently is about 7000 MW, but added that government was making efforts to complete and inaugurate some renewable energy projects.
He listed the projects to include the 10 MW Katsina wind farm, 30 MW Gurara Hydro Power, 29 MW Dadin Kowa Hydro Power and 40 MW Kashimbilla Hydro Power.
The former governor of Lagos State further disclosed that large projects such as the 3050 MW Mambilla Hydro Power and 700 MW Zungeru Hydro power initiatives as well as the 14 Solar IPPs were expected to come on stream soon.
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