A Survey Of Solar Energy Utilization For Sustainable Development In Nigeria

Access to clean, affordable, and environmentally friendly energy is a condition for attainment of sustainable development. This paper discusses how Nigeria can exploit and utilize solar photovoltaic (PV) in her journey towards sustainable development. The Solar PV is a renewable source of energy that offers clean, everlasting, and environmentally friendly energy that can be used in households, education, health, agriculture, social, communal, commercial and industrial sectors of the economy. Practical applications of solar PV includes for lighting, water pumping, cooking, phone charging, vaccine preservation, dairy refrigeration, egg incubation, crop and manure drying, as well as fish and poultry production. The paper enumerated the benefits derivable from utilization of solar PV to include employment generation, increased agricultural production, access to large pollutionfree energy source among others. The paper concluded that if the identified constraints to exploitation and utilization of solar PV are tackled and the recommendations adhered to, Nigeria will be on her way to attaining sustainable development by increasing the energy accessibility of her citizens through utilization of solar P