The Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki has said the National
Assembly will have to amend the laws on power generation, transmission and
distribution in other to replicate the feat recorded by the German
Village, Feldheim, where residents combined efforts and local resources to
produce clean and renewable energy.
Saraki in a statement by his Special Adviser (Media and Publicity), Yusuph
Olaniyonu, made th comment after inspecting the project in the energy
self-sufficient village located 70 kilometres outside Berlin and said the
achievement of the Germans was possible in Nigeria if only the leadership
and the operators could be serious and demonstrate the will power.
He said the issue of power supply remains top in the agenda of the Senate
as it is a key instrument for eradicating poverty and unleashing the
potentials of the people. “That is why we had a workshop on the sector
last month. It is also why we are here to see the experiment and success
of the people of Feldheim and see what our people can learn from it,” he
said.
“We have to amend the laws to allow communities to generate energy that is
more than 10 megawatts and even the laws about power transmission and
distribution have to be amended to allow more creativity and involvement
from the private sector”, he said.
While briefing the Senators, the Project Leader, Mr. Werner Frohwitter
said the project was one in which “citizens take their energy supply into
their own hands” as they contributed money to build bio-gas plants which
use slurry and manure from their pigs and cows and wind farms.
He added that though the village has a population of 140 people, it hosts
about 4,000 visitors yearly comprising students, politicians, researchers,
scholars and journalists who want to learn about how the people’s efforts
led to the generation of 10mw of electricity, from which they sell the
excess to the national power grid.
Frohwitter said Feldheim is now a community which produces “safe, local,
economic and ecological supply of heat and electricity organised by and
under the responsibility of the citizens independent from the grids of
conventional power utility companies”.
The Senate delegation, on return to Berlin on Wednesday night, also had a
discussion with Mr. Thomas Silberhorn, the Parliamentary State Secretary
to the Federal Minister for Economic Co-operation and Development on how
to foster economic exchange between the European giant and Nigeria.