Bioenergy potential in Nigeria

The potential of waste agricultural, forest and waste material in Nigeria for energy generation was quantitatively estimated using Nigerian Government data. The current biomass capacity of Nigeria is over 200 billion kg of biomass per year. Wood fuel and charcoal account for over 80% of the energy that is consumed in households in Nigeria for cooking and heating. Wood fuel accounts for about 94% of traditional biomass that is utilized for household cooking in Nigeria. 46 million tonnes of wood fuel was used in 2014 for domestic cooking in the country. The nation’s total energy consumption in 2015 was 121 Mtoe. The analysis that was carried out in this work shows that Nigeria has the potential to generate about 62 Mtoe (2.6 billion GJ) of energy from its biomass resources (about 51% of the nation’s energy consumption in 2015). The largest resource by far is agricultural crop residues, much of which is currently burnt in the fields. The estimated bioenergy potential of Nigeria’s forest residue (8.7 Mtoe equivalent to 363 PJ) is 1.04 times greater than the energy consumed for transportation and four times greater than the nation’s electricity consumption in 2015. The costs of transportation energy (pump price of oil products) and electricity in Nigeria are still high despite the huge amount of biomass that is available in the country, from which clean and renewable fuels or energy can be produced. If the abundant bio-resources of Nigeria are harnessed to produce bioenergy, transportation fuels and electricity, then energy will become more affordable and more accessible by the general populace. The power sector of the country will also be stabilized, and electricity supplies provided for rural areas, where the agricultural waste biomass occurs