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By Adewale Sanyaolu
The acting Director, National Centre for Energy Efficiency and Conservation (NCEEC), University of Lagos, Dr. Olawale Ajibola, has raised the alarm over the 50 per cent of profit spent by Medium Small Micro Enterprises (MSMEs) on energy.
Ajibola stated this at a workshop organised for MSMEs in the South-West with the theme: ‘‘Energy Efficiency, Energy Audit and Energy management held at the Centre for Management Development (CMD), Shangisha, Lagos.
He noted that all over the world, the backbone of the business sector are the MSMEs, saying it remained imperative that the government focuses on MSMEs for rapid economic growth as findings revealed that energy consumes about 50 per cent of profit of MSME’s.
To reverse the huge profit spent on energy, Ajibola urged MSMEs to embrace energy efficiency for improved profitability.
‘‘I am sure everyone here present will not agree less with Jen Martin Skibsted when he said in part that “More efficient use of energy means that less fuel is required to generate a given amount of energy, which in turn means lower costs for the provider and cheaper prices for the customers”.
According to Barnie Sanders, “Every day we are paying more for energy than we should, due to poor insulation, inefficient lights, appliances, and heating and cooling equipment: money we could save by investing in energy efficiency. The road to energy efficiency is, in theory, a sustainability sweepstake”.
According to him, other areas where we waste energy causing us to pay more, especially in Nigeria, include poor architectural designs, uncultured attitudes towards energy usage, to mention but few.
This, he said, is where energy efficiency, energy audit and energy management will play key roles, noting that people in Western world are not more careful than us, but the difference is their investment in energy efficiency technologies.
Zac Goldsmith once said, “A pound invested in energy efficiency buys seven times more energy solution than a pound invested in nuclear power”. The time to invest on energy efficiency is now.
In the words of Faith Birol, “Fossil fuel subsidies are a hand brake as we drive along the roads to a sustainable energy future”.
Ajibola acknowledged that the workshop is an initiative of President Muhammadu Buhari, whose passion is to see that, Nigeria graduates from the current monolithic economy to diversified economy majorly driven by MSME’s.
‘‘The DG/CEO of ECN, Professor Eli Jibere Bala, is dedicated to the president’s vision. To achieve this feat, the role of energy cannot be overemphasized. Physics defines energy as a thermodynamic quantity equivalent to the capacity of a physical system to do work (Wordweb).’’
Ajibola, who quoted Faith Birol, said: “When I look at the many energy-using sectors such as businesses, households, electricity generators, the transportation sector, I see that the business sector is the one which uses the energy efficiency potential the highest because they know that using energy more efficiently will also reduce their costs”.
Ajibola acknowledged the contribution of Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, for tackling the problem of energy engineering head-on by establishing the Ministry of Energy.
He gave assurance that NCCEC shall establish close link with the ministry to further the course of energy economy and energy engineering.
