The Plateau Government says it will partner with Eilat-Eilot, an Israeli company, to create a renewable energy hub in the state.
The Plateau’s Commissioner for Water Resources and Energy, Mr David Wuyep, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Jos.
According to the commissioner, the project is meant to encourage the use of renewable energy, which “is cheaper and environmental friendly”.
“This project intent is to make people use renewable energy for the generation of power supply, like sun (solar energy), Water (Hydro energy) Wind (Kinetic energy) they are called renewable energy because they are inexhaustible.
“At the moment 90 per cent of our energy in Nigeria is fossil fuel, which is not good for the environment.
“It is contributing greatly to the climate change and to arrest this we need to commence the use of renewable energy,” he opined.
The commissioner disclosed that the state is endowed with three out of the four major sources of renewable energy.
“Plateau has over 20 hydro-Points where we can generate hydro-electricity from, as a Plateau it is a good shed for water and it drains into various river basins and streams where we can easily generate electricity.
“Plateau is on slope and that gives us natural kinetic energy with which we can generate electricity.
“Plateau is also the 3rd highest solar radiation point in Nigeria after the North-East and North-West, so this puts us at a vantage position to generate solar energy.
“The state is also lying along 3 wind corridors that have the highest speed in the country almost on the index 3 and 4 that means we are well positioned to generate electricity using wind,” he added.
He further disclosed that the State is also blessed with the highest calorie vegetation which is used in the production of biomass such vegetation, he said are castor oil, soya bean plants and the likes.
The commissioner further explained that biomass is fuel that is developed from organic materials, which is a renewable and sustainable source of energy used to create electricity or other forms of power.
He explained that starting this project requires a lot of capital, but to maintain them over the years cost next to nothing.
He said that the hub would be completed before the end of 2018. (NAN)