THE FIRST OFF-GRID SOLAR HOUSE UNVEILED IN LAGOS, NIGERIA

The off-grid solar house Project. Image courtesy: Concept Technologies

Here is an article from Guardian Newspapers about the the first off-grid solar house in the country which was unveiled at Ejigbo, in Ejigbo Local Council Development Area, LCDA, of Lagos State. The five-bedroom bungalow was located in Ejigbo, a suburb of Lagos, and it has been off the national grid in the last one year. The edifice was built and managed by Concept Technologies.

Image courtesy: Concept Technologies

According to the Managing Director, Concept Technologies, Tokunbo Tonade, the idea of the house was borne from the need to use renewable energy to solve the epileptic power supply in Nigeria. He said: “The home is a 5-bedroom bungalow powered by a 12.6KW solar Off-grid system that runs 94 per cent on the power of the sun and six per cent on diesel during cloudy weather. Off-grid means it has been completely disconnected from thermal electricity, and it’s been running without a blink since the last one year.”

According to Tonade, the solar system generates 12.6KW of electricity per hour using 63 units of 200W solar modules, three units of 60AMPS MPPT controllers, three units of 3.2KW inverters and 24 units of 200AMPD deep cycle batteries. “I have been trying to advocate for renewable energy because it has a lot of gains and for Nigerians to see its impact. With generator, you use some amount of money to install the generator, buy diesel and fuel it yearly and when we add everything up, they are higher than what you will use to install solar energy,” he added.

Image courtesy: Concept Technologies

He further said in the long-run, every year a bank spends N50 million to power each of its branches, in 10 years, it would have spent N500million to power a branch alone. “I want to give you something that has 25 years warranty at N120million, and it will break even in two years, unlike your generator where you are spending N500million in 10 years and you are still spending all the way. Sometimes, people listen to us, sometimes; they say we are talking rubbish. What I do basically is to start from the root,” he said.

Chairman, Ejigbo Local Council Development Area (LCDA), Bello Oloyede (left); Chairman, Isolo LCDA, Alhaji Shamsudeen Olaleye; Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Concept Technologies, Tokunbo Tonade and Executive Director, Concept Technologies, Gbemisola Tonade, during the presentation of the first Off-Grid Solar House built by Concept Technologies, a renewable power solutions company, in Ejigbo, Lagos. Image courtesy: The Guardian

For the Chairmen of Ejigbo, and Isolo LCDA, Shamsudeen Olaleye, and Bello Oloyede, the initiative would surely be embraced by the councils in their quest to reduce money spent on powering generating sets.

Olaleye commended the management of Concept Technologies for their efforts at putting the council on the world map with the unveiling of the off-grid solar powered house, while urging government to support the noble idea.

He said Concept Technologies has continued overtime to help people realize their dreams. “When people come to us with their concept, we use technology to bring it to life. But as time went on, we got to a point where we were building generators with vehicle engines. And from there, we moved to solar energy.

Concept Technology is into renewable energy, from the point of view of saving the planet from global warming. If you look at the world globally closely, you will know that Nigeria is closer to the equatorial belt of the world than countries like Denmark, Sweden, but they use more solar than Nigeria does. They only have about four hours of sunlight per day but we have predominantly 12 hours and eight hours of serious sunlight. Still, we are not using half, or even one-third of what Germany, Sweden and so many countries are using,” he said.