Anambra leading in renewable energy power supply in Nigeria, claims Commissioner

By Praise Chinecherem

Anambra State Commissioner for Power and Water Resources, Mr.Julius Chukwuemeka has ssmsatilnally declared the state as leading in renewable energy power supply in Nigeria.

The Commissioner who disclosed this during press interview in his office said the move is part of government efforts to mitigate the dreaded problems of the global warming and climate change in the state.

Investing in solar energy by Anambra State Government, the Commissioner described the renewable energy resources as a new trend around the world with the sole aim of minimizing as much as possible, the issues of global warming and climate change, not only in Anambra State, but all over the world.

“And for them to do so, they need to embrace the renewable energy resources, and the one that has actually gone far is the solar energy”, the Commissioner said.

“In Anambra here, if you look at vision 2070 and the transition committee report of Governor Soludo and even the Governor’s manifesto, they all spoke so much about how the state can migrate to this cleaner resources of energy in order to help the state reduce the cost of the electricity”, he continued.

Mr Chukwuemeka, who observed that in his office that he had been running solar energy for over two years without any need to buy diesel or carry out any repair, assured that the renewable resources of energy saves costs.

“Though, of course, the initial investment may look high, but if you look at it, for over six months, you must have regained the initial investment you made in getting that done.

“Even some of the barber’s shops in the state are now using solar energy to empower their facilities. What government is doing is to take lead.

“When government offices such as hospitals, schools use the solar energy system to energize their water scheme, the people will begin to run their things on the renewable energy resources.

“You will gradually see individuals keying in. If you go around the state now, you can see that the people are gradually migrating from using the normal surbmacible pump they used for water bolehole to solar panel and invarter system.

The Commissioner, who stated that people might not understand what they are doing now, affirmed that their efforts were geard towards their collective contribution in massively improving the state’s environment, pointing out that when the people burn the fossil fuel, there is an evolution and emission of green house gases, largely the carbonphoroxide that goes into the atmosphere.

“And when this happened, the green house gases and the other components we called chlorofluorocarbon, will attack the ozone layer and they will come down to the people in form of several things like the ozone layer depletion. And when the chorolxine goes out which has the high affinity for oxygen, it will break the ozone bound because it is three oxygen bound.

He emphasized that the ozone layer depletion goes with acid rain and other dangerous things, and explained that when the ozone layer depletion occured in the process of global warming, the earth surface will get heated up, even the underground water and the people will start to witness a lot of climate change around them as the resultant effects of the ozone depletion.

“For instance, in Anambra North Senatorial district of the state, some communities and local governments are witnessing perennial flooding as a result of the global warming and several other natural disasters that come to the people as the result of global menace”, he highlighted.

“So, as we are migrating to use of clean sources of energy, we are saving the environment,and cost, and of course, there will be efficiency,” the Commissioner said.

He was of the opinion that they are looking forward to an era where individuals who have the resources can as well put solar energy in their houses because it is working in the government offices as proof of concept, pointing out that they are trying as much as possible to limit the dependance on the national grid.

“In as much as we have been trying to stablize power supply in the state, it is important for the people to diversify, so that they can have alternative to avoid the situation where when the EEDC takes the power, they will not have power again in their offices, homes and any other of their business units.

“Part of our effort is to improve the ease of doing business and help the people to work so that they can embrace the environmental friendly sources of energy to power their facilities, among other things as contained in Mr.Governor’s manifesto which he said spoke so much about environment.

The Commissioner, who spoke further, recalled that if the people should look at the five key pillars of the Governor that environment alone is one pillar, opining that what that means is that the issue around environment is very important to Mr Governor.

He, however, advised the people to embrace as much as possible the measures capable of mitigating the negative impacts of the global warming and have a shift from the use of fossil fuel to use of renewable energy in powering their homes and their other facilities.