Sustainable potential of bioenergy resources for distributed power generation development in Nigeria

Rising concerns about global energy security and climate change due to emissions of noxious gases resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels have strongly renewed interest in renewable energy development. These concerns have also coordinated a reaction towards the global focus on a clean development mechanism, which is a basic strategy endorsed in the framework of the Kyoto Protocol. The use of biomass for the sustainable distributed generation of power offers immense hope to rural dwellers, who have limited access to electricity from centralized grid systems. Like other renewable sources of energy, biomass distributed-generation systems will play a critical role in the future of electrical power demand outlooks and energy generation planning. This article presents the wide-ranging potential of bioenergy resources in Nigeria for bioelectric power generation. It explicates the poor energy situation of the country and highlights different categories of biomass that can be exploited to tackle the energy deficiency in many rural communities. The study concludes with a discussion on the significance of distributed-generation electricity using bioenergy resources for rural energy supply, including brief discussions on the technologies for bioelectric power utilization.