Light dey? (Is there electricity in the house?)II

Nigerians can no longer wait for 3 – 5 years for a power plant being built somewhere in the country to become operational and commissioned before they can begin to enjoy steady and uninterrupted power in their homes and businesses.

As a statement of fact, our transmission grid can only handle a capacity of 7,000MW and so generating beyond that capacity is an utter waste of resources except the government is looking towards upgrading the transmission capacity by investing several billions of dollars which has been advised against by countless power professionals globally.

Again, It is not hidden that Nigerians currently spend over $8 billion USD annually importing refined petroleum products for the purpose of power generation. This must be put to a stop and the monies channeled into the economy.But before this can be done, we need to solve the problem at hand. There is a known saying that ‘You cannot solve a problem with the same mindset used which resulted in the problem in the first instance’. Hence Nigeria must look towards newer ways and cleaner method of generating electricity for its citizens in a more sustainable manner without jeopardizing the future of generations yet unborn.

What then is the solution if we are to answer the above question begging us for an answer?

Just as it was achieved in the telecom industry whereby the country went from about 120,000 lines to millions of lines, Nigeria has been offered a unique and rare opportunity from its current power challenges to leap-frog the conventional (fossil fuel) way of generating electricity with the use of renewables – Solar in particular.

This will instantly see our power generation capacity from renewables dwarf the current generation capacity in less than 5 years putting an end to the above embarrassing question and in the process displacing over 50 million generators currently being used in the households and businesses. The ripple effect of this is that it will lead to increase in the GDP of the country bringing electricity to millions in the rural areas, reducing unemployment and the lost man hours resulting from the unavailability of power, put to an end capital flight and help position the country on the true path of industrialization- for without power, no nation can truly be developed….To be Continued