Technical Director of
IPgrupp Engineering, Mr Shola Daley, has called for the local manufacturing of solar electricity Photo Voltaic (PV) panels in the country to accelerate the setting up of more solar plants in the country.
Daley made the call in an interview with newsmen in Abuja.
Daley, who is a power and control instrumentation specialist, said that Nigeria had the required raw materials to manufacture the PV panels locally.
He said it was expensive importing PV panels into the country, adding that their expensive nature was a bane to speedy development of solar energy in the country.
He said given the inauguration of the 1.2 megawatts of first solar plant in the country, it was necessary to replicate many of such solar plants in other parts of the country endowed with solar energy potential.
This, he said, was realisable, given the availability of PV panels in the country at an affordable rate.
He said it was important for government at all levels to provide enabling environment for investors to invest in the manufacturing of PV panels in the country.
He called on government to create policies designed at reducing the cost of setting up PV panels manufacturing companies.
“I think that there is need for polices designed to encourage tariff reduction, because a lot of these equipment are still being imported.
“Government should look at the ways to encourage manufactures outside the country to set up plants to actually manufacture the PV panels here because that is the main issue.
“If we do that locally, a lot of the raw materials are in abundance here locally.“
He said that it was necessary to encourage global players who already had the technology to set up the companies here in Nigeria.