Architect Makes Case For Solar Technology In Housing

An architect in Rivers
State, Silvanus Acheru, has urged his colleagues and other stakeholders in the building industry to explore the use of solar energy technology in building.
Acheru who gave this advice in Port Harcourt, Saturday, stated that architects should explore the use of Building Integrated Photo Voltaic Systems (BIPV), a renewable energy technology in the construction of houses.
He said the technology, when applied in building, could convert heat from the sunlight to electrical energy for use in building adding that the use of the technology that converts solar energy would help meet the energy requirement of solar heating and electricity.
According to him, solar heating has been used for centuries  in drying crops, bricks and clay pots.
Acheru said that solar electricity could be generated from direct sunlight using photo voltaic cells, and that the method could be harnessed and used to generate electricity in areas that were not connected to the national grid in the country.
He said “Nigeria could adopt and adapt some strategies as is obtained in some other countries as a means to increasing power generation from solar. In the World Bank 2012 report, Nigeria has the potential to generate 40GW from Solar.”
“Nigeria currently generates a maximum of 4GW of electricity from all the resources available to it, which is 10 times above the current generation capacity and four times greater than the current demand nation wide,” he said.
He advised the Federal Government to roll out a subsidy programme for BIPV Projects in support of development of photo voltaic electricity generation ventures in Nigeria.

Corlins Walter