CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY

The continuous growth of scarcity of energy (both mechanical and electrical energy in Nigeria has grown overtime); is one among the factors hampering the industrial growth and economic progress in Nigeria. There federal government of Nigeria through the ministry of power have put in so much effort to fix the problem of power instability in Nigeria; setting up of new power plant will be heavily dependent on import of highly volatile fossil fuels or the over-utilization of the available mineral resource thereby affecting the export of crude oil and other resources in Nigeria.

It is therefore very important to tackle the energy crises through judicious utilization of abundant renewable energy resources such as Biomas energy, solar energy, wind energy and geothermal energy. Apart from the effective utilization of the energy supply, renewable resources will help Nigeria in mitigating climate change. Solar Power a clean renewable resource with zero emission has got tremendous potential of energy which can be harnessed using a variety of devices. With recent developments, solar energy systems are easily available for industrial and domestic use with the added advantage of minimum maintenance.

Solar energy could be made financially viable with government tax incentives and rebates. Most of the developed countries are switching over to solar energy as one of the prime renewable energy source. The current architectural designs make provision for photovoltaic cells and necessary circuitry while making building plans. Recently according to (Federal Ministry of Environment, 2013) stated that there have been several renewable energy projects in many countries which shows clearly that renewable energy can directly contribute to poverty alleviation by providing a substantial amount of energy needed for creating businesses and employment especially in rural communities that have not yet been connected to the National grid.

Several renewable energy technologies are presently being used to supply energy for cooking, space heating, lighting, automobiles, etc. The combination of energy efficiency, conservation, and renewable energy resources, should allow Nigeria to meet any future increase in demand without increasing its reliance on non-renewable resources (Federal Ministry of Environment, 2013). Solar energy can be seen as the anchor behind various forms of renewable energy. According to (Tyagi et al., 2013) stated that it anchors hydro power where the hydrological cycle is being controlled by the sun as well as Wind Power where the movement of air is due to the heating effect of the sun on the atmosphere. In general, heat, kinetic energy, electrical energy and chemical energy can be provided via solar energy conversion

 1.2 STATEMENT OF RESEARCH PROBLEM

What instigated the study on the effect of solar power is the over reliance on electricity as a source of power. The maintenance cost of the power sector of Nigeria is really a major clog on the wheel of the growth and development of Nigeria. Most of the huge industries in Nigeria could not run effectively because daily consumption of fuel, diesel etc to run most of their big machineries. The above effect is also seen in the small and medium scale enterprises in Nigeria; it is obvious that the switch to solar energy will go a long way in solving the problems associated with the unavailability of power from other sources such (electrical and mechanical) but there are still some issues at hand which is the cost of implementing the solar power by most of the small and medium scale enterprise. Even with the developments the issue of implementation needs to be tackled.

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