Conservation of energy’ll address power outages

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola has said that energy conservation is key to achieving uninterrupted supply in the country.

He said conserving the little available power will ensure energy efficiency.

The Minister stated this in Abuja at the launch of the Building Energy Efficiency Code, jointly funded by the European Union (EU) and German government.

According to him, already built non-compliant facilities poses energy efficiency and economic challenges adding that that the BEEC have been put up to address this.

“All of the fundamentals of the codes here have been elevated to the revised national building codes which will be presented to the public in a matter of weeks or months, not only do non-compliant facilities that have already been built presents energy efficiency challenges and therefore economic problems for us because they cost more to operate, he said.

He further added that non-compliant already built infrastructure could also provide employment opportunities through retrofittings.

The retro fittings, according to him, allows for the use of energy saving bulbs to conserve energy.

His words:”they also present enormous and prolific opportunities on the employment side through retrofitting. Jobs that we cannot see now are exist.

“It will encompass using energy saving bulbs as a start. If we must keep bulbs on, they must be energy efficient and the technology on that has improved massively in the last one or two decades and still improving.

“When we talk about energy efficiency, we not asking people to do us a favour, we are actually asking people to do themselves a favour. Energy efficiency is really about cost of living, it is about economics.

“The road map that we have presented for electricity starts first with getting more power we don’t have enough and that is the job of the owners of the electricity sector that is the GenCos, the second leg is stable power, when we have had enough but even when we have stable power, there is still that place we want to be, uninterrupted power which deals largely with you and i.

“That is the part that talks about conservation, reduction of waste and efficient use of energy but we don’t have to wait for stable energy before we start conserving. Even what is not enough now can be optimally utilised if we conserve it. Conserving energy is part of energy increase, it is part of energy stability and would clearly lead us to uninterrupted power supply.”

Earlier, EU Head of Corporation, Clens Hogel said the BEEC, if applied by all stakeholders will contribute to energy saving and increased security of electricity supply.

He noted the importance of checking labels of appliances for energy efficiency saying; “this is what we can all do together to improve not only the environment in general but the energy situation in this country.”

He further said that the “BEEC is one of the concrete steps towards contributing to the target set in the renewable energy, the code focuses on measures that we should all implement in the future.