Stakeholders in the energy sector on Tuesday converged on Abuja to brainstorm on implementing the Energy Transition Plan (ETP).

On August 24, the federal government launched the ETP. The plan is designed to simultaneously tackle the challenges of energy poverty and the climate change crisis.

The stakeholders’ dialogue was organised by the Renewable Energy Association of Nigeria (REAN).

REAN president Ayo Ademilua said the ETP identified the key areas where there was currently high emission in Nigeria, listing the key areas to include cooking with firewood and charcoal in rural areas and gas flaring.

”When you move into interior parts of the country, about 60 per cent of the people there are still not doing clean cooking and are emitting carbon.

“We have over 120 million people in Nigeria not doing clean cooking, and they are emitting carbon,” stated Mr Ademilua.

Mutanga Umar-Sadiq, representing the office of the vice president, said Nigeria was positioned as the first country to develop a detailed energy transition plan.

He revealed that about 65 per cent of the country’s total in-house gas emissions were related to energy consumption and industrial processes.

According to him, power and clean cooking are the most actionable sub-sectors within energy consumption.

“The power sector represents the largest individual source of emission, particularly because of generators and diesel,” Mr Umar-Sadiq explained. “As we think about how to engage with the plan, as we think about identifying the opportunities to explore, we are trying to displace the use of diesel and generator set to cleaner sources.”

Mr Umar-Sadiq also said that part of the Nigeria energy transition plan was identifying the pathways, hence in the short term achieving universal access to energy by 2030.

“And also in the longer term achieving net zero in 2060 and to do that, we think that we need to deploy solar capacity at an unprecedented scale, ‘’ he said.

Jochen Luckscheiter, country director of Heinrich Böll Foundation, said if the plan was implemented, it would significantly contribute to tackling energy poverty in Nigeria and “help to put Nigeria on a pathway towards its ambition to reach net zero by 2060.”

(NAN)