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Nigeria 'energy savings day'......

Franklin Ossuetta on March 2, 2008 | 1027 Views | 2 Comments

This is a pretty hard scenario to imagine.....or picture. The situation in Nigeria is so poor that we hardly have enough for domestic or industrial consumption....to even think about saving energy for a whole day. And why a day only anyway.....what happens after that day....? The country needs a per capita consumption of 1000watt per person, but they are presently supplying less than 30watt per person. That is a TOTAL Power Generation of between 2500MW to 3000MW [i.e. total generation fluctuates] for a population of almost 140,000,000 [million] people.

However, what would be good for Nigeria would be something like switching ALL the Home and Office air-conditioners from 2HP units to 1HP units. Honestly there are a large number of 2HP, 3HP and 5HP airconditioners that are turning small rooms into Freezers. This sort of Energy Savings is slightly possible with a Government led campaign. This would create more electricity that would be available for other regions in the country.

Energy efficiency is not a lost cause.......rather a reality we must face very soon.

2 Comments

Photo #1 by Tushar Mogre on March 15, 2008 at 10:10 p.m.

The solution for such problems in developing and under developed countries lies in going with non-conventional approach.

Every country in 3rd world has its own perticular nature of problems. And in general opinion about Nigeria is that the problem does not lie in improvement or the technology available to improve. But most of the electrical companies do not want to enter here due to high level of corruption, political instability, poor security to outside technical manpower.

Unless government does not look into seriously solving these problems associated with Nigerian Power Authority (NEPA - do not know if the name or agency is changed now), the improvement is difficult to come.

If power is in shortage, the common people are going to suffer and the foreign companies who can afford to run the industries with Generators (Diesel Machine powered Gen sets) will make the business there and take the money out of country.

Local business and industry is bound to suffer due to such problems.

Solutions like APDRP  scheme with help of World Bank in India has started showing results now even though there is still about 35% power defisit in India. Nigera too should start looking into such schemes and improve the situation there.

But again!!! Political will - Is it really there????

Photo #2 by Franklin Ossuetta on March 16, 2008 at 10:06 p.m.

This is more of a comment on another comment.........for the above pulse. I really appreciate the first comment about the pulse ..... Nigeria 'energy savings day' . The focus of every solution lies in the political will. Whether it is Banking, Telecoms, Petroleum, Manufacturing etc. But not totally dependent on this political will.

I want to point out that efforts can be made even before total support from the government comes in. For example in the petroleum sector......there has been continuous FDI's [Foreign Direct Investment] despite the corruption, political instability, poor security to outside technical manpower. As a matter of fact the risks are higher in the petroleum sector than any other in terms of technical manpower. But there seems to be a continuous inflow in FDI investments. Adding to the fact that the actual "Crude Oil Production"  can take up to 5 years to attain. This is most likely because the ROI [Return On Investment] is very impressive in countries like Nigeria.

Where am I going with this......? Chinese foreign investments all over Africa and the globe. What the Chinese have done is simply marvelous. They have looked at each country as they are and simply made allowances for higher risk factors. This helps them seek for the right partners to work with while doing business in developing countries that have all the negative circumstances mentioned above. IT WORKS FOR THEM AND IS PROFITABLE. The truth is countries like Nigeria are growing markets and will absorb Billions of US Dollars from the careful investor who is willing to come to that country and SEARCH FOR THE RIGHT PARTNERS and see for themselves the opportunities available.

So regarding the POWER SECTOR in these countries, search for the right partner and see that it is possible to set up a plant and make government comply. Otherwise countries like China will always take the lion share in Africa and go home smiling. Business schools need to learn a thing or two from Chinese investors and businesses.

THINK OUTSIDE THAT BOX.....THE FUTURE IS REAL AND UNAVOIDABLE.....AFRICA MUST GENERATE POWER SOON.

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