Optimization of the Industrial use of Renewable Energy for a Sustainable and Hazard-free Environment

Abstract

The benefits associated with the utilization of renewable energy sources such as improved electricity access, economic development and energy sustainability can never be over-emphasized. Nigeria being a developing country with an acute electricity problem is blessed with renewable energy resources. Due to capital intensive nature of renewable energy sources, most of these energy sources remain unexploited in Nigeria. This study aims at developing a general framework that can be utilized in Nigeria to minimize the total cost of installing renewable energy technologies while satisfying some predetermined constraints which include demand and supply, renewable energy potentials. There is inequitable access of rural communities to electricity services in the country as demand supersedes the generation. This paper presents three case scenarios namely prospective off-grid which accesses electricity level below 50%, on-grid which accesses electricity level above 50% and all-off-grid which finds the optimal cost of installing off-grid renewable energies. The results show that the total installation costs of the first and second scenarios are $97.46 and $114.03 billion respectively while that of the third scenario is found to be $244.33 billion. Further analysis of the results obtained revealed that the combination of the off-grid and on-grid installations have the minimum installation cost and it is to be adopted especially in the rural and remote areas.