By Franklin Alli
The sustainable Development and Renew Energy Initiative (SDREI) ,a non governmental organisation (NGO), has stressed the need for government to develop a comprehensive renewable energy policy as a panacea to the lingering energy crises in the country.

According to the Executive Director of SDREI, Mr Chris Momoh , renewable energy will boost government’s effort to meeting the country’s energy demand.

“Government should consider critically the funding of renewable energy or shift policy that will rely on renewable generation of electricity to meet shortfall in electricity demand and future increase in energy demand,” he said.

He maintained that new policy should be geared toward encouraging financial support mechanism to advance the course of renewable electricity projects.

Momoh regretted that Nigeria is unable to utilise 50 per cent installed capacity of power while the rest 50 percent is lost as a result of inefficiency.

Momoh expressed the belief that the REMP is capable of committing Nigeria to the development of all major renewable energy resources while the successful implementation of the Masterplan will result in the installation of about 2,945 mega watts of wind, solar, photo voitaic (PV), solar thermal, small hydro and biomass by 2025 which is roughly equivalent to the entire grid capacity in the country.

This he assured will help in placing Nigeria in forefront of green Nation providing clean and carbon free electricity but he said Nigeria has not been able to classify in details subsidies and incentives to encourage investment in the renewable energy sector.

He advised that it is as a result of these inconsistencies that government should embrace the initiative of enacting the Renewable Energy Master Plan (REMP) and propose various energy efficiency programmes.