The Federal Government says it is determined to provide the enabling environment for effective utilization of the nation’s abundant low-carbon hydrogen energy resources under its energy diversification initiatives.
Dr Kingsley Udey, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, said this on Tuesday in Abuja at the opening of a three-day summit on Low-Carbon Hydrogen Economy.
It was aimed at accelerating Nigeria’s transition to clean energy. Low-carbon energies include wind, solar, hydro and nuclear power
The event was organized by the Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN) and the European Union (EU).
As part of the blueprints towards achieving the object Udey said that a national hydrogen policy draft had reached an advanced stage and would become operational as soon as possible.
Udey represented by Dr Mukhtar Muhammad, the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, said that Nigeria’s hydrogen as a critical component of the nation’s clean energy transition plan.
“This government commits to ensuring that the regulatory clarity our agencies require to act is not the obstacle to achieving economic diversification,” he said.
The minister acknowledged technical support from Germany and UNIDO, but cautioned that necessary regulatory work and licensing belonged strictly to Nigerian institutions.
“Our partners have offered Nigeria a door; they have not offered to walk through it on our behalf.
“A decade from now, when other nations are developing fleets of hydrogen-powered vehicles on their roads, will you be able to account for what you did,” he said.
The Director-General of the Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN), Dr Mustapha Abdullahi, explained that the global hydrogen market was predicted to reach 50 billion dollars in the coming decades.
Abdullahi saidd that Nigeria should leverage its massive natural gas reserves to produce blue hydrogen and create a new economic opportunity while working toward cleaner alternatives.
“We have over 209 trillion cubic feet below the surface as reserves. What we are trying to do is to create another economy to utilise that gas.
“We want Nigeria to be a hydrogen hub where we cannot just utilise, but export to other African countries,” he said.
Mr Godfrey Ogbemudia, Programme Manager for Energy at the European Union Delegation, said that clean hydrogen offers immense opportunities for Nigeria to meet its net-zero and renewable targets.
“We are not only just interested in the knowledge that you are going to get. How does this translate into concrete investment?
“How does this help Nigeria meet its energy target? That is what we will be looking forward to see and we are going to follow this up strictly,” he said.
The Statistician-General of the Federation, Mr Semiu Adeniran, emphasized that low-carbon hydrogen was revolutionary for decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors like manufacturing and transport.
Represented by Kazeem Fatai, a Senior Statistician at the National Bureau of Statistics, Adeniran warned that successful transition frameworks should be evidence-based and economically viable.
“The development of a successful hydrogen ecosystem demands an entirely new baseline of robust statistics.
“We need high fidelity data tracking energy input-output ratios, infrastructure factor flows, green jobs, and crucially disaggregated data on industrial process,” he said.
Etiosa Uyigue, Executive Director of the Community Research and Development Centre, stated that the EU-funded project actively supports multiple core government agencies.
He listed the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency and the Rural Electrification Agency among institutions receiving crucial capacity building and data collection support.
“The overall objective of the project is to support the government efforts to achieve the energy transition goals,” he said.(NAN)
