THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BIOGAS PLANTS IN NIGERIA’S ENERGY STRATEGY

Opeh Raymond and Okezie U

Dept. of Physics and Energy studies

 Western Delta University, Oghara, Delta State

opehraymond@yahoo.co.uk

ABSTRACT

In the face of dwindling power generation that has bedeviled the nation since independence, the need to generate low cost and constant electricity cannot be overemphasized. Due to the epileptic power supply to the national grid, it has become absolutely important to explore other cheap sources of power to meet our urban and rural energy need. This will in no small measure support our national grid and reduce rural-urban drift. The complete dependence on gas generated by the Nigeria National Petroleum Co-operation to power our turbines at our gas plants often exposes the country to power outage due to high cost of maintenance and vandalism. Applying biogas technology to generate power can help the country develop its energy sector more rapidly as the raw material needed to feed the biogas plants are just mere waste such as agricultural and domestic waste. The focus of this paper is on the use of biogas to generate electricity and the production of domestic cooking gas across the rural and urban settlements in the country. The country stands the chance of meeting her vision 20-20-20 which is anchored on constant electricity if this is critically studied by the Ministry of Power and other related agencies of government in charge of our National Gas Plan.

Keywords –      National grid, biogas technology, rural-urban drift, vision 20-20-20.