LAGOS, Nigeria, May 8 (UPI) -- The Nigerian government on Thursday unveiled plans for its first official solar energy project.
The Nigerian commissioner for science and technology, Hamzat Kadiri, announced the $81,000 plan at a press briefing on his office's activities, according to a report in the Lagos newspaper Vanguard.
The first solar installation will be in the Lagos state village of Kodji, and 10 other rural communities in the state will have similar solar projects in place before the end of the year, Kadiri said via the report.
Kadiri called the projects "an environmentally friendly alternative to the use of fossil fuels to generate power," the report said.
Kodji is home to about 5,000 people, most of them farmers or fishermen, the report said, and the state solar project would provide enough electricity for all of them.
Kadiri told reporters that connecting the village to the national electricity grid would have cost 15 times as much as the government will pay to outfit the village with a solar system.
Nigeria's electricity is inconsistent, but because the tropical country receives sunshine year-round, solar is "the most viable source of renewable energy," the report quoted Kadiri as saying.
This new emphasis on solar energy comes though Nigeria is the largest oil producer in Africa and the 10th largest producer of crude oil in the world.
In 2005, it produced 2.4 million bbl/d of crude.