FG inaugurates National Consultative Committee on renewable energy statistics
By Ibiyemi Mathew
The Federal Government has inaugurated the National Consultative Committee on Renewable Energy statistics (NCC on res).
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the National Energy Statistics workshop in Abuja, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr Adeleke Mamora said, “the constitution and inauguration of the Consultative Committee is a necessary and critical instrument in having reliable data on renewable energy for planning and research purposes particularly now that climate mitigation hinges mostly on transition to renewable energy and energy efficiency.”
According to Mamora, the committee which will comprise of all relevant government Ministries, Departments and Agencies as well as non-government actors and the private sector will operate by a term of reference.
“It will have a terms of reference to provide a common platform to share renewable energy statistics, achieve greater coordination and avoid unnecessary duplication of effort and provide the mechanism for and harmonization of renewable energy statistics to support the National Energy Databank of the Commission as repository of bankable energy data in Nigeria,” he said.
The Minister also seized the opportunity to call on the Federal Ministries of Power and Mines and Steel Development to also establish similar committees for Coal, Bitumen and Radioactive sources and power respectively for an holistic coverage of the entire energy sector.
In his welcome address, the Director General/CEO, Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN), Professor Eli Jidere Bala, said the workshop was organised to validate energy data so far collected.
“It is important to state here that the petroleum statistical data is collated by the National Consultative Committee on Petroleum Statistical Data established by the Ministry of Petroleum. However, there have been no consultative committees on Coal, Bitumen, Radioactive sources, Electricity and Renewable Energy. ECN has therefore initiated the establishment of National Consultative Committee on Renewable resources.
“ECN has also collaborated with the ECOWAS Commission with the support of the European Union in the implementation of the 11 European Development Fund (EDF) on Energy Governance programme in West Africa (AGOSE-AO) with the primary objective to harmonise and validate 2021 energy data for compiling commodity balance-oil gas, coal, electricity, renewables and consolidated Energy Balance.
“With the national consultative committee, we will have more reliable and acceptable data for planning and for investments,” Professor Bala noted.
Delivering a keynote address, the Statistician General of the Federation, Prince Semiu Adeniran said, “the energy transition program envisages transition pathways across key sectors of the economy and to support the implementation of the transition program, it is imperative that all stakeholders are able to track the constitution of these energy resources in terms of value asset to GDP.
“Recognising the critical role data plays to policy development and implementation, on our part at NBS we will continue to address the binding constraints to production and dissemination of energy data in Nigeria. Apart from establishing the new energy statistics division in the last one years in NBS, we have taken advantage of two important pillars to develop this new division which is collaboration and technology.
“We plan to use both to address the constraints in generating and reporting energy statistics through increased collaboration and engagement with critical stakeholders such as the Energy Commission of Nigeria,” Prince Semiu noted.
