Solar Power: Rescuing A Country In Darkness

By Lateef Adewole

There has been a message that often circulates on social media, purported to be an advice from Nigerian Metrological Agency (NIMET), warning the people about the intensity of the heat that the country is likely to experience, and the basic precautions that people need to take to avoid health problems as a result. Something like limiting exposure to sunlight as much as possible, especially during certain hours. Regular drinking of plenty water. Staying in cool areas, etc.

In a "normal" situation, people should simply ensure they operate in air-conditioned environment as much as possible. Homes, offices, in the vehicles and even in public places. But, how many people can afford such "luxuries"? For those who could provide such facilities like air-conditioning equipment at homes and offices, where is the electricity to power them?

The situation of power supply has remained pathetic as far as I could remembered in Nigeria. The situation has degenerated in the last few months, with series of problems adduced to different reasons, resulting in the suffering that Nigerians have been going through like forever. If the generating plants did not shut down due to lack of gas, in a country blessed with abundance of natural gas depost, it will be as a result of breakdown from lack of adequate maintenance or aged equipment, which always led to shortfall in the amount of power produced by the generation companies (gencos) and available for evacuation onto the national grid.

Or, it will be the collapse of national grid itself. This has occurred more than twice in the last few weeks and over 200 times in the last decade. The Minister for power blamed the erratic power supply on dry season. The excuse is that the dams have low water level as a result, considering that there are important power generating stations that are hydroelectric. Shiroro and Jebba power plants belong to this category. I often wondered about this excuses when I think of many countries in the desert region with little or no rainfall annually and less water bodies. Does it mean they won't have power at all? Ludicrous!

Nigerians, who can afford it, have resorted to running generators as alternative. These commonly use petrol or diesel. Sadly, apart from the high cost of procuring the generators, the fuels are uneconomical to provide electricity for residential, commercial and industrial facilities, they could be expensive, particularly in period of scarcity. Our experience in the last few months in Nigeria has not been palatable, with fuel scarcity, which shut up the prices of petrol to as high as 500-1000 naira and diesel to over 700-800 naira per liter. How can individuals or businesses survive using them to provide power?

There is a joke about me in the neighbourhood where I live. In the midst of all of these power and fuel crisis, people say that "I have immunity". Why? Because, the power problems do not affect me. How? Because "I live on solar!" How do I mean? What I mean is that, I have successfully solved my personal power problems by deploying the use of solar-inverter systems. As a result, I hardly get bothered about what happens to public power.

In the last 11 years, I have been using these systems. They had their challenges at early stages but those have been largely eliminated. I have not had power outage in my house in nearly 8 years and I stopped using generator completely in the last 5 years. I have been enjoying 24/7 electricity all these years. This often sounds like a fairy tale to most people living in Nigeria but it is the truth. This is a personal experience.

Nigeria is one of the countries in the world blessed with near perfect weather conditions. We have adequate rainfalls in most part of the country, as well as adequate sunlight. This is unlike in some countries with extreme of both cases; either none or limited rain and sunlight round the year or excess of both. So, when people lament about the heat from the sun, I wondered why we cannot harness the light from the same sun to generate power to help ourselves.

Across the country, over 80% enjoys an average of 8 to 10 hours of reasonable "brightness" from sunlight daily, though, the consideration is more conservative than that when scientifically analysing the amount of energy that could be obtained from the sun and for how long. This is called Peak Sun Hour (PSH), in solar power analysis. It varies from location to location.

How does this sunlight to power work? Without being overly technical, the system simply requires the use of solar panel, made of photovoltaic semiconductor material (like silicon), that produces electric current when the light rays are incidented on its surface. Some chemical processes take place within the materials used to make the solar panels, which produce that result. This electric current (electricity) is then passed through a conductor (cable), into the appliance that needs to be powered. This current is called direct current (d.c).

With a regulator (solar charge controller) that regulates the rate of charging and offer some protection, this d.c can be connected directly to many equipment that work on d.c. However, many of our appliances and equipment; domestic and industrial, work on what is called an "alternating current" (a.c). This is the type we get from the public power sources and our generators. Therefore, the need to convert d.c to a.c. This is where another equipment is introduced. It is called inverter. It is an electrical equipment that is capable of inverting a d.c to a.c and also converts a.c to d.c.

When this is fed from solar panels output d.c, it inverts it to a.c, which can then be used to power a.c appliances like bulb, television, fan, sound system, fridge, freezer, washing machine, blender, water pumping machine, air-conditioner, computer, printer, fuel station pumping, and just about anything that uses electricity.

In the above scenario, it was a direct utilisation of energy being produced by the solar panels from the sun. Once the sun goes down, the power goes down. Meaning there will be no power during the night or anytime there is darkness. How is this remedied? That is where the inverter battery comes in. This is a chemical device that has the capacity to store energy while being charged and release the same when needed at a later time. There are too many scientific details that make that happen.

So, to enjoy constant availability of power, the battery, which is a d.c device, is charged by connecting the solar panels to it directly, while the sunlight is available. This is continously stored in it until the battery is fully charged. When there is no sunlight, the battery in turn, supplies d.c to inverter, which is connected to it, which inverts it to an a.c that gives electricity to the appliances. And the cycle continues.

The battery can also be charged by the inverter when connected to public power or generator. It converts the a.c from these sources to d.c and use it to charge the battery. After fully charged, the inverter is disconnected from the power source. The battery can later supply input d.c to the inverter when the public power is unavailable.

This is a very simplified description of how the whole solar-inverter systems work. In real practice, it is far more complicated and involves many engineering calculations, designs, installations, testing, deployment and so on. Also, there are other advanced technology of deploying solar power system to generate electricity, especially in large scale to serve a community or country, which are far more complex than this, like in solar thermal power stations.

So, if all I have described above is possible, why do Nigerians still live and suffer in darkness? There are many factors that are militating against it. As a person, I am a trained Electrical Engineer, with interest in Power. After solving my personal power problems using the solar-inverter systems above, I established a company engaging in the business of solving power problems using the same systems. For many years now, we have done this successfully, to the best of our ability and within the existing permissible business environment. What then are the challenges? The most critical is the high initial capital required to set it up.

Like many things in Nigeria, most of the equipment are imported. The inverter, battery, solar panels, and controllers. Although, a Nigerian company has started producing solar panels locally. This is one of the parts. Because of this importation, the exchange rate affects the costs of the equipment and devices, coupled with the regular increase in the import duties at the ports. The general inflation that affects every other thing, affects it too.

For us in the business, limited or lack of funds is an issue. In our company, we have ran a credit scheme for some time by arranging instalmental payment plans for interested financially capable clients, to make it easy for them to acquire and enjoy our services. Sustaining such scheme requires that we get sufficient funds, whether personal or borrowed, or line of credit from the suppliers / manufacturers of those equipment and items we use. Debt recovery rate is also another problem that can be caused by the overall economic challenges facing the people. This is disincentive to such scheme.

The Federal government has made efforts at deploying solar power solutions on captive power basis. Some major markets like Yankura in Kano, are now powered by solar. Some universities are now running substantially on solar, financed by the FG. There was also an ambitious plan to power 5 million homes using solar. Funds were being released to execute that but the process seemed cumbersome. There is need for more publicity and transparency.

Government has not succeeded in solving power problems in Nigeria for many decades with just over 4000 megawatts for over 200 million people, when the need should probably be about 200,000MW. The privatisation of power sector has not yielded the desired results. Rather, the people felt they are worse off. This is because, despite giving "darkness", the "now privatised" distribution companies (discos) still have the audacity to continously increase tariffs on regular basis. They charge consumers far and above what they consume, through their fraudulent estimated billing systems. They refused to meter large number of their customers. The harassment and intimidation while they carry out their illegal disconnections, have become unbearable to the people.

So, government needs to support solar entrepreneurs to deliver power in silos to residents and commercial facilities. This can be achieved by extending grants or soft loans to serious solar companies, at zero or very low interest rate. Local manufacturing of the devices should be encouraged by attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the sector. Waivers or concessions should be given on imported solar equipment, before local productions take off.

There are also wider implications for massively embracing renewable energy systems, considering the global green energy campaigns, reduction of emissions, protection of ozone layer, global warming issues and reducing carbon footprint. Nigeria will be seen as making efforts to improve global well-being.

With all that have been discussed so far, everyone could see how great the use of solar power system can help in lighting up the country, mitigating and solving our power problems gradually, starting with individuals like I have done for myself and our company's customers. The system requires nearly no running costs with only minimal maintenance requirements at intervals. Battery replacement takes place after few years. Solar panel servicing (cleaning) after few years. Routine servicing of inverters. Repairs, in case of any fault, which is not frequent once quality products are used.

These are nothing compared to using generator as alternative power source, with the attendant constant daily fuel costs, constant maintenance and repairs, oil spillage in the process, noise and environmental pollution. This is why solar is called "clean energy". Almost all home appliances and many equipment designed to work with solar, are now available in the market place. This is an added advantage.

No country can survive or make desired progress without effective and efficient power system. A functional solar power business sector will create direct jobs for the practitioners and indirect jobs for other power dependent sectors whose power problems would be solved. A boost in this will contribute to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. There will also be better lives for the citizens. It is hight time Nigeria took advantage of our God-given natural resource- Sunlight, to address our power problems.

May God continue to protect us and guide us aright.

God Bless Nigeria.

Lateef Adewole

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