Evaluation Of Niger Delta Promotion Strategy For Virtual Power Plant Using 100% Renewable

ABSTRACT

In any nation economic advancement depends on electricity generation, transmission and distribution and also, the physical wellbeing of people is attributed to efficient energy and it is also pivotal in the development of a country’s economy. In Nigeria, constant availability of power has become a problem from independence to this day. Energy from biomass, wind solar and hydro-power, would be helpful in solving the country’s problem in terms of electricity. It is estimated that Nigeria can produce 2.01 EJ (47.97 MTOE) of energy from 168.49 million tons of agricultural residue and some waste materials produced within a period of one year or more. This paper reviewed the renewable resources available in Nigeria have the potential of generating electricity from them. It also evaluated various renewable strategies towards energy conversion and adopting useful technologies to countries that are developing such Nigeria.

TABLE OF CONTENT

COVER PAGE

APPROVAL PAGE

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENT

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

1.2    PROBLEM STATEMENT

1.3     AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF STUDY

1.4     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

1.5     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

1.6     JUSTIFICATION OF STUDY

CHAPTER TWO

2.1    OVERVIEW OF RENEWABLE ENERGY

2.2   HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

2.3   REVIEW OF RENEWABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES

2.4   RENEWABLE ENERGY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

2.5    A RENEWABLE ENERGY SYSTEM IN A RURAL AREA

2.6     THE VIRTUAL POWER PLANT

2.7     BARRIERS FOR SOLAR ENERGY IMPLEMENTATION IN NIGERIA

2.8     FINANCING OF SOLAR ENERGY PROJECTS

CHAPTER THREE

3.0     MATERIALS AND METHOD

3.1     AREA OF THE STUDY

3.2     RIVERS STATE AGRICULTURAL LAND AREA AND USE

3.3     BIOMASS POTENTIAL IN RIVERS STATE

3.4     SITE SELECTION CRITERIA FOR WIND ENERGY POWER PLANT IN RIVERS STATE

3.5     HYDROPOWER POTENTIAL IN RIVERS STATE

CHAPTER FOUR

4.1 RESULT AND ANALYSIS OF RESULT

4.2 DISCUSSION

CHAPTER FIVE

5.1 CONCLUSION

5.2. REFERENCES

                                                            CHAPTER ONE

1.0                                                         INTRODUCTION

1.1                                          BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

It is no longer news that one of the major problems facing Nigeria is inadequate access to electricity. This inadequacy has affected virtually all sectors of the Nigerian economy (Godswill, 2017). For example, hardly any establishment such as schools, hospitals, companies or industries can thrive properly in Nigeria without the aid of an external source of power like generators that make use of diesel.

Nigeria is rich in natural resources such as oil, natural gas, and coal; it also has potential in renewable energy sources such as hydropower, wind and solar. In the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Report of 2019, it was posited that Nigeria has a maximum production capacity per day of 2.5 million barrels of crude oil, which makes Nigeria Africa’s largest oil producer and the sixth-largest producer of oil in the world (Shehu et al, 2013). (Oil Production NNPC group) This report also shows that Nigeria has greater potential for gas than oil, considering the level of secondary gas products that are produced daily by the industry. (Ibid) However, as a result of the clamor to employ more sustainable measures in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (ESI), the attitude of the government and policymakers has shifted profoundly (Chitzi, 2018).

This has created the need for substantial research into the Electricity Supply Industry, so as to ensure a proper transitional framework that would provide for the addition of electricity sourced from renewable energy into the grid, in a manner that would not negatively affect the integrity of grid balancing or the accessibility of electricity (Chitzi, 2018). Furthermore, research carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency (Ibid.)| shows that a total of 77 million people constituting 42 percent of the total Nigerian population– do not have access to electricity: access in urban areas amounts to 86 percent, while rural areas comprised a mere 41.1 percent, making for a population average access of only 59.3 percent. 80percent of the total installed capacity of 10.52 million kilowatts is derived from fossil fuels and 19 percent of the total installed capacity comes from hydroelectric plants (Chitzi, 2018).

Finally, Nigeria has no installed nuclear fuel capacity and no other renewable energy sources. From the statistics provided, it can be inferred that there is an over-dependence on fossil fuels in the Nigerian energy sector in Nigeria, which gives rise to negative health and environmental impacts. It should further be noted that while nuclear power might theoretically provide a cleaner option, Nigeria does not at present have the capacity for a nuclear plant (Ajayi, 2010).

Nigeria has great energy potential, which if appropriately harnessed, could fully solve problems pertaining to insufficient access to electricity in the country (REMP, 2021). The Nigerian electricity industry urgently needs a legislative framework capable of addressing the country’s energy insecurity issues, its inadequate environmental standards, and its inadequate quality of supply and energy conservation standards. More so, Nigeria has international obligations through its ratification of treaties such as the Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, (UNFC) the International Convention on Oil Pollution Preparedness, Response and Cooperation the International Convention on Oil Pollution Preparedness, Response and Cooperation, (UNFC) United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNCL) the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (Vienna Convention), (ICPPS) the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution of the Sea by Oil, (Ibid) the Constitution of the World Health Organization, and the Charter of the United Nations (REMP, 2021).

All of these impose standards pertaining to the pollution of the environment and healthy living in the nation. A prominent example that details the non-compliance of Nigeria with both its domestic and international obligations is the recent ‘Port Harcourt incidence’. Port Harcourt city is at the heart of Nigeria’s oil-producing region, and there have recently been illicit refining activities leading to very low air quality as a result of the production of black smoke being pumped out by the refineries. This has caused the city’s residents to inhale black soot, leading the media to rage about it for the past few months (REMP, 2021). To cap it all, the World Bank stated in another report that it estimated all Nigerians to be exposed to polluted air at a level of four times above the global health limits for safe air. It has been proposed that adequate legal reforms could improve access to electricity by focusing on the viability of dividing the country into smaller segments for purposes of fostering small-scale renewable electricity generation and accessibility (Uzoma, 2011). There are three prerequisites to be addressed before this could be viably done. First, recognition of the fact that Nigeria’s status as one of the countries with the greatest oil reserves could be a militating factor and therefore requires both legal and institutional transitioning to enable the adoption of the recent trends of renewable energy generation (Uzoma, 2011). Second, the legal framework has to adequately encourage both foreign and local investments in the electricity industry, and to portray the Nigerian electricity market as a viable one where both long term and short term profits could be achieved; there is furthermore a need to deal with the social and community barriers to investors in the market (Uzoma, 2011).

The third prerequisite would be to deal with Nigerian government corruption, as this would inadvertently impede the progress of the investments that would be attracted by the modifications of laws to enable small-scale renewable electricity generation (Hoogwijk et al, 2013) Small-scale renewable electricity refers to electricity generated, and owned by individuals, small businesses and communities. It is mostly of small or medium scale and has proved to be a viable strategy for meeting the energy needs of a nation. Some of the benefits include a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and the promotion of environmentally friendly sources of energy; improved economic stability throughenergy security. The progress and success of any form of investment in a nation is largely dependent on the kind of economic progression in place and to a large extent, this is dependent on the government at the helm of affairs at a particular point, because the government has a direct impact on the type of policies to be made.

This study is aimed to evaluate Nigeria promotional strategies for Virtual Power Plants using 100% renewable.

1.2                                                  PROBLEM STATEMENT

Nigeria has a good natural resources in areas such as agriculture, forestry and minerals which dominated by industrial development. Nigeria’s population is growing at a rate of 1.9% per year. In 2010, the population was 28.3 million people and estimated to achieve 31.6 million in 2020 (Khan, 2019).

Economic growth came from large part of population growth, industrialization and urbanization, leading to the increasing demand of energy. In response, the development of the energy sector has created establishment of energy safe, reliable and cost-emphasized. The need now is the efficient use of energy to diversify energy sources and ensure waste minimization.

Besides the energy source that is already used, Nigeria has enormous resources of both non-renewable resources and renewable resources. The largest source of non-renewable energy in Malaysia is petroleum (oil and gas), which is actively used. Although Nigeria has some coal deposits, only a small percentage eliminated. Two abundant sources of renewable energy in Nigeria are wind and solar energy.

Solar and wind energy in Nigeria has increased due to the advantage it has over other types of energy generating stations. Although there are many solar energy installation in Nigeria, most of them are only use to supply small amount of energy to homes. There still no specific solar and wind plant is built to supply energy to whole Nigerian as one of important energy supplier in Nigeria.

1.3      AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF STUDY

The main aim of this study is to evaluate a strategy of replacing the conventional energy source    with the non-conventional energy source. The objectives are:

1. To overcome the acute electricity problem in Nigeria.
2. To simulate based on Nigeria Energy concept the possibility of fulfilling the electricity supply of Nigeria out of its local resources by using a Virtual Power

• To put our natural resources together thereby overcoming the power situation in Nigeria and also the harm cause by the Conventional Energy in our atmosphere causes global warming (Greenhouse effect).

1.4                 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Although the importance of energy is widely acknowledged in Nigeria, the challenges facing small scale generation of electricity in Nigeria has not received extensive scholarly analysis. The ultimate significance of this research is to propose legal and policy reforms aimed at transitioning Nigeria’s energy sector from overdependence on fossil fuels to renewable energy generation after a careful comparative analysis of the legal methods adopted by other jurisdictions to solve similar problems. Second, a contextual study is made to ensure that the proposed legal and policy reforms will be practically realizable, thereby enabling small-scale renewable electricity generation in terms of generation, transmission and off-take potential.

This suggested legal and policy reform will inform government officials in the energy sector, international legal analysts, and ministry of natural resources, energy, environment and justice of various countries. This research will also be valuable to researchers in the fields of international, energy, health and environmental law.

1.5      SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The scope of this work focused on using our natural resources such as solar radiation. Solar radiation is fairly well distributed in Nigeria with average solar radiation of about 19.8 MJm^-2 day^-1 and average sunshine hours of 6 hours a day; ranging between about 3.5hrs at the coastal areas and 9.0hrs at the far northern. With all of these resources, to see how we can put them to improve the rate of electricity power in our country.

1.6               JUSTIFICATION OF STUDY

Having established that there has been no dedicated scholarly research specific to enhancing small-scale renewable generation in Nigeria and the investigation of their viability as to grid connection, transmission, and off take potential thus far, a clear need for this research has been established. In recommending a model, certain factors will be considered in order to arrive at a good fit for Nigeria. First, because Nigeria is a developing country that seeks to improve the state of its economy, it would be useful to recommend a model that has been adopted by a more advanced country, detailing how such a country has transitioned its electricity sector to align with recent trends. The writer is taking an aspirational approach because in the writer’s opinion it is not a safe approach to look at other developing countries like South Africa and Brazil as their electricity systems are not stable and do not represent a system that Nigeria should strive for.

Second, it needs to be a country with a strong fossil fuel background. As stated earlier, the Nigerian economy is strongly dependent on the advancement of the oil and gas industry, given its high oil reserve. However, there is an urgent need for an energy transition which necessitates a change in the attitude of the Nigerian electricity sector towards renewable electricity. This therefore reasonably implies that a good model to be recommended would be a country with high fossil reserves that has recorded success in the energy sector through the transition from overdependence on fossil fuels to a sustainable approach for energy provision. Third, given the emphasis on renewable generation in this thesis, the model country needs to have electricity legislation with provisions for the promotion of renewable energy generation. Finally, the political/governmental structure of the model jurisdiction must be such that the model is viable for adaptation to the Nigerian context.