As part of its contribution to solving the country’s power challenge the Federal University of Technology Akure, FUTA has stepped up its initiative on Renewable Energy. To further harness its potentials in this sector, a colloquium tagged 2015Renewable Energy summit was recently held at the institution where experts from various fields charted the way forward.
Convener of the Summit and Director, Centre for Renewable Energy Technology (CRET), FUTA, Professor Olurinde Lafe while highlighting the vision and mission of the Centre said purposeful collaboration which is crucial to attaining the goal of Renewable Energy is possible in an environment that fosters innovation. He called on Universities, research centres ,industries and government agencies to come together through purposeful collaboration achievable by having proposals and other knowledge infrastructure that can develop new technologies to tackle energy challenge currently facing the nation.
Lafe also said that the University stands to improve on its Internally Generated Revenue and also develop its capacity through staff and students involvement in the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the Campus Power Supply Project which he described as the first priority of the Centre. The don called on experts from within and outside the University who attended the summit to contribute their quota through constant collaboration, innovation and commercialization of the power supply when generated to solve the power challenge currently facing the University and its environ .
In his address, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Adebiyi Daramola, who was represented by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Development, Professor Tolulope Akinbogun said the University had resolved to make renewable energy one of its focal research areas. He said the establishment of the Centre for Renewable Energy Technology (CRET) was done to create a vehicle to spearhead, coordinate and facilitate research and community service in renewable energy.
Lamenting the negative effect of lack of enough energy on the nation’s economy, Daramola said“We all know that a nation’s economic prosperity is largely dependent on its industrial productivity. We also know that a great driver of industrial growth and productivity is energy. Companies and industries are folding up in Nigeria because of energy challenge, a situation that escalates the cost of production through alternative source of energies. We in FUTA strongly believe this trend can be halted and it must start from the University with purpose driven research like ours.”
An international expert on Renewable Energy, Professor Babatunde Obilana warned against unfavourable government policies that may thwart Renewable Energy effort. He also called for adequate research, training and retraining in Renewable Energy to strengthen the knowledge base of experts in the sector.
