The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has
decried the absence of a policy on renewable energy in the country, saying the
development is retarding the contribution of solar energy to the power supply.
Speaking at the Nigeria Photovoltaic Energy Conference,
Solarcon 2014, held in Lagos at the weekend, NERC’s Deputy General Manager in
charge of Research and Development, Mr. Imamudeen Talba said Nigeria had all
the potentials for solar power but lacked policies and legislations to drive
this renewable energy option.
“The problem we have in solar in Nigeria, particularly
renewable is absence of policies, regulatory challenges and other challenges.
Why is it that we do not have adequate solar projects in Nigeria, despite all
the potentials that we have? When we go to international for a, we find
ourselves embarrassed because most of the West African countries have
structured processes for renewable. Some countries have gone to the extent of
making legislations for renewable; some countries have policies for renewable
energy but Nigeria does not have,” he explained.
He said grid-connected solar power faced a lot of challenges
in the country, adding that grid supplies are usually the cheapest option in
areas with high load densities, as well as in areas near the grid.
However, Talba said a number of challenges militates against
grid-connected solar energy.
He listed the challenges to include high costs of installation and wiring;
large land area required and the fact that solar power is not dispatchable,
that is, cannot respond to automatic generation control signals from the
control centre.
Talba also stated that connecting small, isolated villages to a grid can be
expensive because of the necessary investment in transmission lines, poles,
transformers, and other infrastructure.
“Solar PV power come in relatively small size and are best connected to low
voltage lines whereas NBET buys power only at transmission voltage,” he said.
According to him, the National Energy Policy provides for
increase renewable share of power supply, adding also that the yet-to-be
approved draft renewable energy master plan provides for 18 per cent of the
electricity installed capacity from renewable energies not including the
existing large hydropower by the year 2020.
He argued that the country should effectively harness solar energy resources
and integrate them with other energy resources.
Talba also called for the promotion of the use of efficient solar energy
conversion technologies, such as use of photo-voltaic and concentrated solar
panels for power generation.
He also called on the Federal Government to intensify efforts
to increase the percentage of solar energy in the present energy mix.
To encourage investment in renewable energy, Talba listed the incentives that
are implied in the feed-in tariff to include guaranteed market; priority grid
connection and offtake ; simplified licensing /permit process; concessionary
tariff rates and facilitated land acquisition/ site access.
Other recommended policy incentives, according to him,
include tax holidays; import duty exemptions; investment tax credits.
He said NERC on its part, had initiated regulatory instruments to drive solar
energy in the country.
He identified the regulatory instruments provided by the
agency to include feed-in tariff methodology; draft standard power purchase
agreement (PPA); draft licensing guideline; interconnection guidelines; draft
incentive proposal and embedded generation regulation.
According to him, feed-in tariffs refer to a minimum guaranteed price per unit
of produced electricity as approved by the regulator, to be paid to the
producer, or as a premium in addition to market electricity prices.
“Regulatory measures are usually applied to impose an
obligation on electricity utilities to pay the (independent) renewable energy
power producer a price as specified by the government. The level of the tariff
is commonly set for a number of years to give investors security on income for
a substantial part of the project lifetime. Nigeria is currently assessing the
various regulatory, policy and incentive options, given that each approach has
its pros and cons,” he added.
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