Vice chancellor of Edo University, Iyamho, Emmanuel Aluyor, says the institution has designed and fabricated a 2000-litre unit capacity of bio-digester as a pilot for practical demonstration.
Aluyor said this at the 2nd Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun – Higher Education Partnership for Sub-Saharan Africa (FUPRE-HEP SSA) knowledge sharing workshop on Sustainable Solutions for Multiscale Biogas Utility as an alternative energy resource, held at Edo University, Iyamho.
He said the 2,000 litres unit capacity bio-digester, which was the university grant through the FUPRE/EUI -HEP-SSA was in fulfilment of the town-and-gown event to showcase biogas technology within the host community.
The vice chancellor, who declared the workshop open, said FUPRE as Hub university, was in collaboration with Edo University, Iyamho, Brunel University, London, UK, and other designated universities and corporate bodies to develop and sustain capacity towards a successful implementation of the project “Biogas for Sustainable Energy and Off-Grid Power.”
Aluyor, represented by the deputy vice chancellor, Steve Omodia, said as one of the Hub institutions, the university expected that the HEP-SSA Hub and spoke institutions would meet to share knowledge on sustainable solutions for Multiscale Biogas utility as an alternative energy resource in Nigeria as well as to evaluate all available terms, outcomes and options regarding the FUPRE/EUI-HEP-SSA project.
The university is poised to be a major contractor in the advancement of knowledge and understanding for the benefit of the social, cultural and economic needs of the people of Edo State in particular and Nigeria in general, he said.
He further added that the university had departed from the knowledge-based curriculum to competency-based curriculum with the inclusion of entrepreneurial studies in all programmes.
The vice chancellor, however, called for a collaborative research that would spur universities to actions and produce better alternatives for technological development of the country.
In his remark, Edo State Commissioner for Education, Emmanuel Agbale, said the inadequate power supply and the challenges bedevilling the current sources of power generation in Nigeria necessitated the search for an alternative source of power that would be less exposed to the challenges inherited in it.
Agbale, who congratulated the university for organising the workshop, said his ministry would partner FUPRE/EUI in the areas of curriculum development and research works.
He also commended FUPRE, the Royal Academy of Engineering, UK, and the spoke institutions for initiating the projects, which was crucial to the economic and technological development of Nigeria.
He noted, “Biogas as an alternative source of energy is a mixture of gases produced by the breakdown of organic matters in the absence of oxygen, which can be produced from raw materials such as agricultural waste, manure, municipal waste, plant materials, sewage, green waste and food waste.”
The commissioner, however, assured that the Godwin Obaseki-led administration in the state was irrevocably committed to the industrialisation of the statem, which informed the focus on Science and Technology as well as Technical and Vocational education in the state.
