How to Generate Temporary Electricity for All Nigerians Pending Promised Electricity for All – By Dr. Philip Ikomi

Posted by admin Articles, Columnists, NNP Columnists, Philip Ikomi Sunday, January 13th, 2013

By Dr. Philip Ikomi |NNP | Jan. 13, 2013 – In the early 1980’s I thought of generating electricity from the sea and that when I got to the United States, I would work to get a patent for generating electricity from sea waves. I got to the US quite alright in 1982 but I did not pursue this idea. However, it continued to be on my mind even to this day. I have however heard and perhaps read about attempts to generate electricity from the sea. These attempts make me believe that I was on the right track. The way I conceptualized it was that the sea makes waves all the time and as such, these waves could act as little or small water falls whose energies could be harnessed using microchips.

Several microchips could then be harnessed to run turbines that could produce the electricity. With the idea of nanotechnology, one could even make nanotechonological turbines being driven by microchip technology. I am not about to write more about this technological innovation in this piece. Rather I want to raise the issue of generating electricity from the technology that we already have to serve Nigerian needs right now. Given the right support what I intend to propose here will make electricity available to virtually all Nigerians within the space of six months to one year at the most. How do I intend to make this happen?

In Nigeria there are an aweful lot of standby generators. Most government offices, federal, state and a few local government offices have standby electricity generating plants. What is required is to harness these generators to the national grid and make the power available during instances of load shedding in certain areas so that those who would not have had electricity would now have. For instance, In say, the Alausa area of Lagos state, when there is load shedding affecting Alausa, generators feeding that area would be started to channel electricity to the affected area so that the area no longer is in darkness These generators would be augmenting the existing generation from the national grid, not that they would be the sole generation. It is the shortage that would be augmented by the generators. I have listed government generators in this write up but the same thing could apply to private or corporate generators which sit idle until there is a power failure in the area where they are used.

I used government because it is understood that the government is responsible for providing electricity to ghe public. However, what the electricity utility company could do is pay for the service. Where I live (in the US) the electric utility company has an arrangement with the people whereby the utility company is allowed to shut down consumption from household appliances during periods of high electric demand and pays compensation to each household for that permission in monetary terms. A certain amount of cash is paid to each individual consumer account for the service each year. What the Power Holding Company of Nigeria has to do is have an agreement written into the electric contract of every consumer that they will pay them for the service whereby all generators will be switched on as needed by the company and credit given to each consumer for such uses.

So, for instance, since each generator will already be connected to the national electric grid, whenever the company anticipates overload in a particular area, they simply switch on a consumer’s generator or several generators to meet the extra demand. That way there may never be a situation where the company runs short of supply to any part of the country. The PHCN could also have an agreement with households to switch off their high electricity consuming appliances, like refrigerators, air conditioners, and others during high demand periods so that the system does not break down. For the ability to switch off these appliances, PHCN would have to pay compensation in cash also. Such compensation would normally be paid through credits given on consumers’ electric bills.

So what would be required. There would have to be a national legislation empowering the PHCN to undertake individual contracts with consumers—federal, state and local governments, individuals, corporations, and other entities– to pay them for switching on their generators and using the power so provided to power the national grid, and to pay consumers for switching off their appliances to conserve power so that the Nigerian power system does not buckle during periods of high demand. PHCN would also have to make available to consumers all the paraphernalia to make switching possible from PHCN’s remote locations from those consumers. In this regard, the switching should allow PHCN to identify which generators in what businesses or government entities should be switched off/on or which appliances in what locations should be switched on/off.

This might seem a difficult task, but it is not as the consumers and PHCN have local connections right at the point of delivery, and not nationally in which case you could be talking about an appliance in Nguru when the section you are dealing with is in Kafanchan. If there was a fault in Nguru you would deal with it with resources in Nguru and vice versa in Kafanchan. The way to get the buying of swiches underway is for PHCN to buy them and install them or better still, to have Nigerians with generating capacity greater than a certain value determined by officials of PHCN buy the switches. It will be necessary for PHCN officials to determine the minimum generating capacity needed to use on the national grid because it is not every generator that will be powerful enough to be relied on for such uses.

For this transition to take place within the shortest time possible, switching off and on would presently have to be done manually until such a time that the remote electronic switching on/off gadgery have been acquired and the necessary training given to personnel. Nigerians have suffered for too long without electricity and this is not a time to start waiting for niceties. Nigeria has to start as crudely as possible to get electricity to all its inhabitants so that the true potential of the country could be realized as soon as possible regardless of the naysayers who had predicted the demise of the nation come 2015 but who now are saying that Nigeria would indeed be an economic force by 2030.

If this suggestion is carried out, Nigerians will be spared the frustration of not having electricity to run their daily lives, especially being without light in the middle of the night each night for several months in a year. The Nigerian economy will take off like a meteorite while the normal long term plan of providing electricity in enough amount to the entire nation proceeds apace. In Nigeria there is a lot of over capacity in standby power generation and this over capacity could be used to give everyone and every industry, continuous electricity. Thus there would be no need to constantly remain without electricity while the rich and government offices enjoy electricity during office hours only for people to go home to their dark and damp homes after closing from work each day. I hope this suggestion would be implemented immediately.;
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