Nigeria now generates 2MW of wind power - Fashola

Babatunde Fashola, minister of Power, Works and Housing has said that Nigeria now generates and transmits two megawatts (MW) of electricity into her national grid from the 10MW Katsina wind power farm in Lambar Rimi Katsina.

Speaking on Arise Network, television programme on Monday in Abuja, Fashola said the Katsina wind farm which had been abandoned was now actively generating power. He also said that 22 of the farm’s 37 turbines were yet to be fixed and turned on.

“But for us to use wind, we need to build at a higher altitude the infrastructure, that cost will then be passed on to the consumers. We are experimenting with the wind project in Katsina. It is a 10MW project we inherited that had actually stopped working when we came in but we are now generating two megawatts out of it. There are about 22 turbines left to finish. But we are very prolific with solar, that is why we are giving so much support to solar,” said Fashola .

The wind farm project was initiated by the late Pres- ident Umaru Musa Yar’adua when he was governor of Katsina, but it was subsequently transferred to the federal government when Yar’adua became president in 2007.

“We are exploring every source of energy that Nigeria is able to efficiently deliver. The source of energy that a nation chooses is ultimately a factor of how much citizens chose to pay for energy. So, Nigeria is not a wind prolific country, we don’t have the wind speed at efficient rate, not that we don’t have wind, I will like to be very clear,” Fashola said.