The federal government on Thursday in Abuja inaugurated a technical committee to drive Nigeria’s renewable energy drive, especially in the area of cooling and air conditioning systems.
The inauguration was part of a one-day National Stakeholders Consultative workshop aimed at accelerating the transition to climate friendly low global warming refrigerants and energy efficient Air Conditioning systems in Nigeria.
Speaking at the event, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Adeleke Mamora stated that Nigeria is one the largest markets for cooling in Africa and one of the fastest-growing in the world; therefore the event will support Nigeria to establish its presence on the continent and the world at large.
He said, “Nigeria through its National Energy policy and climate protocols has joined the rest of the world to recognise energy efficiency as one of the most cost effective means of providing energy security, increasing economic productivity, reducing local air pollution and helping mitigate Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.
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“Achieving national and global climate targets requires broad stakeholder’s involvement, which this project is doing now. The project had initiated the setting up of a National Technical Committee on sustainable cooling in Nigeria that will be inaugurated today as the committee comprises Energy Commission of Nigeria, the standard organization of Nigeria, Federal ministry of environment, National ozone office.
Also speaking, the Director General, Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN) Prof. Eli Jidere Bala said the project is aimed at expanding Nigeria’s transition to climate-friendly, low-global warming potentials (GWP) refrigerants and energy-efficient ACs in residential, commercial and public buildings, thereby contributing to meeting Nigeria’s climate targets (NDCs) cost-effectively and sustainably.
He noted that energy efficiency best practices across all sectors as one of the mitigating priorities measures and has set a conditional target of 2.5 per cent per year reduction in energy intensity.
“To achieve this, we must look at energy-intensive services. We are aware that space cooling by air-conditioning and cold storage of products such as food, medicines and vaccines by refrigeration is one of the most emissions’-intensive processes due to the type of refrigerant used and the source of electricity consumers,” he said.
