The Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN) in collaboration with and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) have indicated interest to partner with LEADERSHIP Media Group to promote the “Nigeria Sustainable Cooling Project ‘’ to maximise energy efficiency.
Indications to this development emerged when the acting director of the Linkages and Consultancy Department of the ECN, Samaila Zaku, led a delegation to the LEADERSHIP corporate headquarters in Abuja on Thursday to sensitise Nigerians on the importance of energy efficiency.
Speaking during the visit, Zaku said the ECN does strategic planning and coordination of policy on energy and also looks at other ways of energy resources that can contribute to national development.
He said “we collaborate with foreign partners to execute projects that relate with energy. We collaborate with the United Nations Environmental Project and this project is targeted at climate mitigation because the world is talking about climate change through stable cooling and in this cooling system we look at the technology we use to streamline the Air Conditioners (AC) in residential, commercial areas.”
National Coordinator of the projects, Etiosa Uyigue said the project is focusing more on Air Conditioners, stressing that the key objective is to “accelerate the use of energy efficiency to save a lot of power.”
He noted that in 2014 the ECN published a report across the six geo zones which said that 40% of energy consumed in Urban areas is consumed by cooling both by refrigeration and AC.
“When we talk about energy efficiency we are talking about trying to use less power to provide certain services, it could be lighting, it could be cooling. We have benefits that accrue from the culture of energy efficiency.
“ECN and UNEP are saying that the little we are generating we can and should use efficiently so that more people can have access to energy and we can also optimise the system.
“So, in this particular project, we targeted three sets of appliances- lighting, refrigeration and AC. These are the basic appliances you find in many houses.
He added that it is not just a Nigerian campaign but a global campaign, saying “we set a minimum level of energy efficiency ratio of 2.8 to measure the efficiency of ACs. The Energy efficiency ratio is the cooling capacity of an AC power. We have done a study and we found out that about 30% of the ACs in the market in Nigeria does not meet the standard minimum of 2.8 ratio. In other words if the standard were to be implemented those ACs will not find their way into the country.”
Communications Officer of the project, Nkechi Isaac, noted that the media is a strategic ally in the sensitization of the Nigerian people on the benefit of efficient energy even as she urged LEADERSHIP to be at the forefront of the campaign.
She added that there is a robust collaboration with Customs, NOA, SON NESRA, ECN, Ministry of Industry Trade And Investment, and Department of climate change of the Ministry of environment, National Council on Climate change on the strategies on enforcement, which will also benefit the environment.
Welcoming the delegation, the Head of Stories of LEADERSHIP Group, Bayo Amodu, assured of the organisation’s readiness to collaborate even as he promised to give the necessary support to make the project succeed.