Nnaji: Nigeria Requires Transition Period Before Banning Importation of Solar Panels

Dike Onwuamaeze

The Chairman of Geometric Power Limited, Professor Bart Nnaji, has called on the federal government to allow a transition period before placing a ban on the importation of solar panels.

Nnaji also doubted that renewable energy, especially in terms of solar, would provide an immediate solution to Nigeria’s perennial power challenges.

He, therefore, advised the government to capitalise on the abundance of natural gas resources in the country to address Nigeria’s power problems while encouraging investments in other sources of energy.  

Nnaji expressed these views yesterday on the Arise News TV.

He said, “Let me say that the very idea of producing goods for our consumption is always good to me. But do we have the capacity to produce solar panels to support what we want in Nigeria? I am not sure that we are there yet. So, probably a transition period is required.

“I do not think that the immediate banning of importation of solar panels would get us there.

“I also believe that solar energy or renewable energy is not going to be the immediate solution.   

“We have an abundance of natural gas. We should capitalise on its abundance to build power plants while at the same time encouraging the building of solar plants.”

He added: “If you have locations where solar can be better harvested and we invest in that kind of location to serve the nation that is good. If you have locations where we have natural gas and you build power plant that is okay. But it must be transmitted.”  

Commenting on the newly announced National Electricity Integrated Policy, Nnaji said that any policy that is intended to grow the power sector in Nigeria is welcomed because the current amount of power in the country is not anywhere what Nigeria should be having.

“So, as long as the integrated policy is delivering on increasing power availability aggressively then we are making progress. The intension is also true to improve transmission infrastructure and to encourage distribution companies to perform better by investments as earlier planned during privatisation. I think the policy will go somewhere,” he said.

According to him, electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) should strive to be robust by investing in infrastructure in order to be able to distribute power adequately.

“If we do not do that we must continue to be having load shedding. It is a serious issue the DISCOs need to think through how they will solve the problem of the area they cover.

“It is better that they have smaller DISCOs or franchises of DISCOs so that there will be investments in them to be able to uptake power,” Nnaji said.

He also emphasised that DISCOs should be credit worthy in order to encourage investments in power generations.

“GENCOs cannot sell directly to DISCOs that are not credit worthy. It is simple economics. If we desire to see more GENCOs, the DISCOs have to be credit worthy enough to pay.

“Financing wise, the federal government needs to rethink its guarantee instrument to ensure that investors are able to invest in power generation. This guarantee instrument is very important.

“But we need to have a discussion or formula on finance, how to generate enough power and on how to make the transmission and distribution robust.

“As we are now, the transmission infrastructure is not going to be able to carry the required power in the nation. We need at least 100,000 megawatts of power,” Nnaji said.

He also spoke on the contentious issue of appropriate tariff for electricity, arguing that “if we want to have electricity it must be paid for. It is a matter of economics. There is no place where electricity comes free in the world. But it must be cost reflective.

“The issue is: do we want to take electricity reliably or do we have to self-generate?”

According to him, having a N4 trillion debt on the head of the federal government from unpaid electricity services across the value chain is not good. “And it comes from this non-cost reflective tariff. It will continue to increase unless there is somewhere the government is going to get that amount,” Nnaji said.