PRODUCERS of electricity from renewable sources have said that they could generate 10,000 megawatts of power from solar, wind and biomass if the federal government extended its intervention to operators in the sub-sector.

They urged the federal government to prevail on the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, to be proactive on issues of electricity generation from renewable sources, adding that it had become important for the country to diversify its power production sources.

Speaking on behalf of the renewable energy power producers, Magnus Onuoha, president, Sustainable Energy Practitioners Association of Nigeria, SEPAN, said other sub-sectors in the power industry had enjoyed one form of subsidy or intervention to drive capacity, but this was not so for players in the renewable energy segment.

He said, “We want the government to be proactive, and as a matter of priority, it should give all players in the power sector a level playing ground. This subsidy that is being enjoyed by other players in the sector is not seen by most of us here. The cost of renewable energy seems to be high, because Nigeria does not have the policy framework for us to drive the process.

“If about 50 per cent of the interventions by the CBN in the power sector, or less than that figure, is deployed into renewables, if we don’t generate 10,000MW of electricity by 2022, then count us out. There have been a whole lot of windows or interventions in the power sector, and we are saying that give us about 50 percent of that and we will deliver this 10,000MW that Nigeria earnestly seeks.”

Onuoha stated that the Transmission Company of Nigeria, power generation firms and distributors of electricity had all enjoyed one form of intervention or the other from the government, adding that it would not be wrong to extend a similar gesture to players in the renewable energy sub-sector.

— May 8, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT