Using Solar power in Nigeria - Multidox .:.:. Blog

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Posted by Felix Okoli on Tuesday November 24, 2015 at 12:54:38:

There is gradually a growing number of people in Nigeria who are switching to greener forms of generating power such as through Solar energy. The abundance of this form of energy in West Africa for most of the year round only makes adopting it a sensible strategy to bridge the gap between the supply and demand for electricity. Nigeria is a growing country and has only had a few years of civilian rule. Capitalists are helping grow the country's economy but there seems to be a growing demand for electricity which has by far surpassed its supply by more than 40 times. A Nigerian minister of power once remarked that meeting the electricity demand would not be possible in the short term and would also require a huge amount of capital which Nigeria's current annual income is not even sufficient to withstand. Who knows? If the Power sector was totally privatized like Obasanjo did for Telecommunications, it would be easily achieveable since the problems Nigerian had with poor telecommunication services is now a thing of the past thanks to companies like MTN, Glo, Airtel and Etisalat. One wonders why the same privatisation strategy has not been adopted for the power sector for so long.

Well, the truth is that for electricity to meet the demand of Nigerians' it's not exactly going to come from the pocket of the government and would more likely come from the pocket of consumers who would eventually be paying higher for electricity. As at 2015, the price or tariff for 1 unit of electricity in Nigeria was about N16 per KWH and there is an additional fixed charge of N750 per month for residential users. In spite of the fact that many Nigerians don't mind paying for electricity despite the number of times the price has increased in the past, supply is still not enough to meet demand and it only makes sense for people to have their own form of independent power.

What if you could spend the same amount of money you spend on paying NEPA/PHCN bills on an independent power system within your control? Well this is possible if you know how to invest wise in a Solar power system. Many Nigerians don't mind paying for electricity bills but many of them get most of their electrical power from their electromechanical generators rather than from power companies. It doesn't make much sense if electricity is supplied by NEPA for just 1 hr a day and you end up using your generator for up to 6 hrs of the day. The cost of running a generator in Nigeria which includes buying fuel and maintenance costs is way higher than the price of grid electricity and we are not even talking about the health hazards of using generators such as the deafening sound and air poisoning. People who visit Nigeria from a foreign and developed country may be amazed when they hear the sound of many generators running in the night because they don't get that kind of experience in their own countries. In Nigeria, the use of power generators is more common than the use of electricity from power companies. The problem with those generators is that they cost you a lot to maintain and also kill you gradually and that's why smart Nigerians are gradually switching to a greener form of power supply called Solar energy.

Solar energy is basically the energy that comes from the sun. The Sun is nature's gift to mankind and since the beginning of the world the sun keeps rising every day from the east and going down in the West. In many countries in Africa such as Nigeria, the temperature is mostly warm unlike cold regions in Europe or North America. This is because they receive greater amount sunlight than those cold regions. It is quite alarming that while countries close to the north pole such as China, USA and Japan who receive little sunlight have massively invested in the production and usage of Solar panels, countries that receive abundant sunlight such as Nigeria are still lacking behind as we still rely on electromechanical generators and hydropower for electricity. There are homes in those developed countries which are already fully powered by solar panels and they don't pay electricity bills to power companies but rather those companies pay them for supplying to them the extra electricity they don't need. Yes, it's quite possible to have a Solar power system in your home that would be able to power your entire home for many years and without the need for paying electricity bills to any company.

I thank God that some Nigerians are becoming aware of the benefits of using Solar panels for electricity generation. I once saw a documentary about a barbing salon in a remote village in Northern Nigeria that was running his business solely on Solar panels. He has solar panels on his roof and a battery bank inside his shop and he connected his electrical clipper and standing fan to the battery bank on one side while he connected the Solar panels to his battery bank on the other hand and in between that was a solar charge controller. So, he is able to generate enough electricity to use for his business on a daily basis and without the need for a generator. The village is not even connected to any Power company but the barber is still able to run his business and make cool money thanks to his knowledge about Solar panels.

If you run a small business such as a computer business center or restaurant, you can also power your electronic devices with Solar panels and the basic thing you need to do is first find out how much power you need on a daily basis and then talk to an expert to know how they can set up a Solar power system for you. There are many solar power companies now in Nigeria and they are basically looking for customers but not many Nigerians seem to have show interest in it. Some Nigerians don't even know that they don't need to put on their power generators just to watch a football match on DSTV and their TV when they can make use of electricity from Solar panels.

Let's assume you have a Samsung Led TV(150W), a DSTV decoder(100W) and a standing fan(50W) you want to power with Solar energy, the first thing you need to find out is how much power in total all of them are going to use and this is normally expressed in Watts. You can check for the Watts by looking at the back of your electronic devices. Let's assume they need a total of 300 Watts per hour, you need to set up a solar system which requires solar panels and a deep cycle battery that can provide at least 300 Watts per hour for up to the number of hours you want to power it. In this case let's assume that you want to power it for up to 4 hrs.

For 4 hrs, your total Power requirement would be 300W*4hrs = 1200 Watt-Hours

The next step after finding your total power requirement for that time frame is to calculate the deep cycle battery requirement. What type of batteries should you use? If it's a 12 volt battery, it can be calculated as follows => Watt-Hours/V => 1200/12 = 100Ah. So, a single 100Ah 12 Volt battery can do this job for us.

What we now need to know is the minimum power of solar panel that we need that can provide the required electricity. We also need to consider the efficiency of the Solar panels which compensates for energy losses and I'm using 0.8 as the factor.

Hence the solar panel power required will be => Watt-Hours/(Hours*Factor) =>1200WH/(4hrs*0.8) = 375 Watts. So, we need a Solar panel that can supply at least 375 Watts and has 4 hrs of sunlight daily. We can always make use of a 400W or two 200 Watts solar panel if we want but you just need at least a a total of about 375 Watts from your Solar panels that gets sunlight at least 4hrs a day.

Apart from powering electronic devices in their homes and businesses, Nigerians also use solar energy for recharging their portable devices that make use of internal batteries such as mobile phones, laptops, tablets, cameras and so on. Solar chargers are cheaper than complete solar powered systems for homes in Nigeria and there are already a lot of those products available in the Nigerian market and they are mostly imported from China. Personally, I have a solar charger myself which I make use of to charge my 10000mAh power bank and when it's fully charged, I can use it to recharge my phone for at least 30 times. Some solar chargers have their own inbuilt battery banks while some are plain solar chargers and would need to be connected to an external battery to store their generated power.

When using Solar panels, it would be connected to a battery bank so that the energy or power it generated during the day can be stored in the batteries for later use when the need arises. It's normally connected to a battery through a charge controller and the battery's output is connected to an inverter so that the current can be changed from Direct to Alternating which is a form most suitable for most of our electronic devices. If you however do have a device that can work directly with direct current, then it can be also connected directly and without the need for a power inverter. I guess that's how solar mobile chargers work because they don't make use of power inverters. Solar panels produce direct current when sunlight touches it and this can be tapped from it by connecting it to a conductor such as a wire and stored in a battery bank.

Compared to other forms of generating power in Nigeria, Solar energy seems to be the most noiseless and greenest. Solar panels have a long life span of about 25 years and need little or no maintenance except for cleaning it. What may make the system a bit more expensive is the cost of deep cycle batteries that it works with and inverters. The cost of a deep cycle battery in Nigeria is about N30000 (about $130) and if not kept in good condition, it may need a replacement after 2 years and that about exceeds the warranty period offered by most sellers. A 100 Watt Solar panel sells for about N25,000 (about $108) and so with less than N100,000, person can set up a basic solar power system at his home or office. For the above system, a power inverter with a rating of 350 to 400VA would be ok.

There are streets in Nigeria where the street lights are powered by Solar energy and they make use of 2 12 Volt batteries and a solar panel to keep the lights on. Problem is that some of them have died off and have not been maintained for a long time. I'm guessing the main problem with those solar street lights going off is their batteries which were probably cheap and didn't come with a long term warranty. If the batteries do get replaced, I believe the lights would go on again but that is the work of the local government. There are also individuals who are taking an example from those solar lights by installing solar powered lights for their homes and those ones tend to last longer than the ones provided by the government.

There are many Solar related products in Nigeria but the market seems not be properly regulated as there are a lot of substandard products in the market as well as high quality products. One problem is that those sub standard or cheap ones get more patronage from buyers than the good quality ones because they are cheap and people who use them don't know except for the technicians who install it for them. When buying solar products such as solar panels, batteries and inverters, it's always good to buy high quality ones if you don't want to return back to the market after 6 months or 1 year for a replacement. You can't compare a product made in China to one made in the UK, Germany or USA. So, when buying solar products, don't just buy it because it's cheap. Buy it because it would be of use to you for the long term else you end up buying the same product over and over again and that is not being economically smart.

Nigerians can buy solar products directly from China through Aliexpress or Alibaba. They can also buy it directly from USA through websites like Amazon, Walmart or eBay. All they basically need is their Nigerian issued debit card (Visa or Mastercard). They can also buy them locally through online shopping websites and physical stores as these products are readily available in the market. As I've already said, there are different brands and different qualities of solar products. A solar panel made by Ade Plc may not last as long as one made by Ikechukwu and Sons Plc or Solar panels made in Aba be the same as one made in Abuja and so it's good to go for the one that would best serve you although I know that things like budget and choice ultimately can affect what type of solar products a person would buy.

Some Nigerians still don't really understand how solar energy or solar panels work but they just want to be have electricity whenever they want it and all I have to say to them is keep some money in your bank and then walk up to a Solar power company in Nigeria, tell them how much power you need and they'll give you a package that suits you finely. There are many of them that already have tailored packaged that can suit one's budget and power needs. You don't need to be an expert to use solar energy or panels in Nigeria as there are a lot of people who can put you through.
It's really unimagineable that Nigerians still parade around streets in the afternoons looking for business centers where there is a power generator so that they can beg to recharge their phone and mobile gadgets. There are now a lot of solar mobile chargers you can sue from the comfort of your home to recharge those gadgets by your window side without having to beg barbers at barbing salons just to use their generators when they are providing service to a customer. I mean, it is really ridiculous but some Nigerians are not ashamed to keep doing it.

It's Nigeria's time to embrace solar energy. We've gone past the age of electro-mechanical generators and internet use. It's now time to convert that scorching sunlight into electricity that has been like a mirage for many of us in Nigeria for so long. Imagine what would happen if everyone in Nigeria generated their own electricity from solar energy? They'd be no longer any need to pay NEPA/PHCN bills but I'm guessing people like the local government would then start issuing Solar panel levies just to generate money as they already do with their Radio and TV license fees.

Comments:
Re: Using Solar power in Nigeria Posted by anbella on Thursday March 10, 2016 at 11:25:25:

pls I want to ask how much does it cost for a room containing a fridge, a television, a fan, and also a bulb to have Dis solar panel installed.

Re: Using Solar power in Nigeria Posted by Felix Okoli on Thursday March 10, 2016 at 11:25:25:

It depend on the total power those electronics need. Let's assume it is 2 kw, then you need a 2kw solar power system and that can cost about N300,000'