ABUJA: Under the Nigerian government plan to generate 40,000MW power by 2020, about 7,200 megawatts of electricity will be produced from solar and other renewable energy sources.
The government expects the power generation to peak at 40,000MW by 2020, with more capacities from Mambilla, Zungeru large hydros, grid power from solar, wind and coal-to-power initiative.
It said that 18 percent of the nation’s power need would be generated from renewable energy sources.
This is contained in a document obtained from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission which was presented at the Nigeria Photovoltaic Energy Conference (Solarcon 2014) in Lagos.
The commission said this was in line with the government’s draft renewable energy master plan, providing for 18 per cent of the electricity installed capacity from renewable energy.
In the presentation titled, ‘Viability of solar energy based electricity grid – regulatory challenges and opportunities’, NERC said Nigeria had enormous solar energy potential but was not exploiting it in significant capacity.
According to the commission, electricity is a required input for economic growth and an indicator of the level of development of a country, adding that a successful economy would depend on secure, safe and efficient supply and the use of electricity.
