YEAC unveils off-grid electricity for N/Delta communities

Port Harcourt -- The Youth and Environmental Advocacy Centre, YEAC-Nigeria, has unveiled a solarpowered mini off-grid electricity for communities in the Niger Delta region, as a way of providing alternative livelihoods for youths in the region to dissuade them from illegal oil bunkering activities.

At the unveiling of the Community Energy and Development Ltd/Gte in Port Harcourt, the Executive Director of YEAC Nigeria, Mr. Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface said dislodging artisanal refiners without alternative livelihoods breeds insecurity, militancy and other unwanted vices.

Fyneface said the power project for poor communities who have no access to electricity was imperative, as artisans such as welders, hairdressers, barbers and shop owners in such communities, will now no longer depend on fossil fuels to power their businesses.

According to him, the core of the project is to create youth employment, alternate livelihood opportunities for youths in the Niger Delta, especially youths involved in pipeline vandalism, crude oil theft, artisanal refining leading to environmental pollution, and at the same time contribute to the fight against climate change.

He said: "Contrary to what we know in terms of power generation, this is a totally clean and renewable energy, every other power generating source either uses gas, diesel or PMS. This energy is being sourced from solar and that makes it very different from whatever we used to have, and it pushes the call for fossil fuels to be left in the soil, because fossil fuels are not doing us any good and now, we are having alternative sources from solar.

"With the solar mini-grid electricity we are setting up in communities, we are not going to have power failure, we are not going to have low current and we are not going to have a system whereby you pay for electricity and you don't enjoy the electricity, all those things are not going to be there, so we have brought on board a sustainable clean and renewable energy that is also affordable for communities without electricity in the Niger Delta to mitigate oil theft because those community people normally depend on petrol, diesel and kerosene from artisanal refinery source will now jettison such and then use the renewable energy in their communities.

“Because there is no market again for the artisanal refiners who are breaking the pipelines to sell their products, they will begin to stay away from that and come to the community where they will build their businesses using the electricity in a peaceful environment without been shot at, without being chased by the security agencies as it is currently happening in the Niger Delta.

"This is going to give peace of mind to both the communities and youths involved in artisanal refining in the

Niger Delta through alternative livelihood opportunities. When you talk about pollution, it is not only at the pipelines, when you have generators, pouring petrol or diesel into it every day, if you look at that spot it is always very black, which means you have polluted the environment, all these things are going to go out.”