SOLAR TECHNOLOGY: AN ALTERNATIVE SOURCE OF ENERGY FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

SOLAR TECHNOLOGY: AN ALTERNATIVE SOURCE OF ENERGY FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER ONE 

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

The development of a nation brings an effective transformation of its socio-political, economic, cultural, technology and industrial bases. More so, within the particular conception of socio-economic processes which underscores every economic system, economic development, globally, resolves around the issues of the character, structure, pattern and evolution of desirable inter-personal relations of production, allocation and utilization of available resources in any country.¹

In order to achieve these and put national development on course, modern operational technologies with respect to production, allocation and utilization is designed and tied strictly to the use of energy in one form or the other.² Based on the above, it is seen that the quest to rapidly and firmly put the Nigerian state on course of sustainable development is technically a function of adequate and sustained supply and distribution of energy. According to the present Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi, the Nigeria economy will continue to take a wrong course until the power sector of the nation is put on the right track.³ This underlines the need of an adequate supply of energy to the nation in general and the industrial sector in particular.

The above synopsis indeed, explain the major reason why one of the frustrating and disturbing issue in Nigeria national development today is that of epileptic power supply particularly since the late 1980’s. The situation of the emerging electricity outrage from the supply inadequacy, especially in the late 1990’s was that of persistent electricity power shortage at alarming rates.⁴ This is in the face of abundant primary electricity resources- coal, natural gas, geothermal, tide, solar, biogas, and biomass to mention but the few. This period was a period that could by tagged the “Dark days” in Nigeria.

Apart from economic and political crisis that grounded socio-political and economic activities in the country, the period of

SOLAR TECHNOLOGY: AN ALTERNATIVE SOURCE OF ENERGY FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT