Nigeria’s minister of state for petroleum resources and group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Ibe Kachikwu, has emphasised the need for Nigeria to give serious consideration to renewable energy as the solution to its energy challenges.
Speaking in an interview on the sidelines of the World Future Energy Summit currently holding in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Kachikwu acknowledged that crude oil and gas were exhaustible resources, noting that the way to make energy accessible to Nigerians in every nook and cranny of the country was to exploit renewable energy sources.
“We need to refocus a lot more effectively on alternative energy resources, particularly solar energy. There is really no reason why a country like Nigeria should not have more of its power supplies from solar. President Buhari is very focused on this, and this is something we are going to apply a lot more of our energy to in the days ahead,” Kachikwu said.
The minister said he did not believe that the exploration of renewable energy would pose a competition to the petroleum industry but rather complement it, as petroleum alone could not meet the huge energy needs of the country, especially considering the fact that crude oil and gas would get exhausted someday.
“We can produce crude and fire gas but, ultimately, the only way to sustainably reach every nook and cranny and every citizen of our country with some level of power supply is to look towards natural sources such as solar, wind, and water resources,” he noted.
According to him, solar energy development used to be very expensive but the cost is dramatically coming down.
