Nigeria and other African countries must leverage technology and innovation to facilitate energy access and transition, the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari has said.
He stated this in a lecture entitled: “Energy transition and energy accessibility-The new paradigm” which he delivered at the 30th convocation ceremony of the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State.
He said the need to leverage technology and innovation had become compelling so as to support energy sufficiency, industrialisation, job creation and economic growth.
The NNPC GMD argued that while findings have shown that global transition to renewable energy would definitely continue to gain momentum, the pace may not be fast enough to offset the impacts of worldwide economic expansion and population growth.
Specifically, he said rising global population especially in Asia and Africa where young people account for almost a half of the population would significantly push energy demand upward where renewable energy sources cannot meet by 2050.
He explained that the efforts to transit energy systems would involve changes, not only to energy technologies and prices, but also to the broader social-economic assemblages that are built around energy production and consumption.
As global energy consumption grows from the 2018 levels to about 50 per cent by 2050, the NNPC boss said it was apparent that oil and gas would continue to be a crucial component of the world’s future energy.
“To achieve seamless transition to cleaner energy, global players must promote diversification of energy sources to improve global access to energy and reduce absolute number of people without access to energy especially in Africa.”
Source: sun
