In this interview with BusinessDay Bala Augie, Frank Li, Managing Director, Huawei Technologies, elucidates the firm’s vision for rural electrification through the off grid solar power station. He also spoke intelligently about using renewable energy to solving power shortage in the country.
What are the challenges that you think Nigeria is now facing in the power sector?
Like many African countries, Nigeria faces electricity shortage . An estimated 41% of Nigerian businesses generate their own power supply to augment the national grid supply according to a recent World Bank Report.
As the population grows and the living standards improve, more and more Nigerian people start to use household appliances. Therefore, currently more device installations are required to meet the increasing electricity demand. And more power plants are urgently required to overcome the ever-growing electricity shortage.
It is reported that over 56 per cent of the Nigerian populace has no access to grid electricity and those who are connected to the grid face substantial power interruptions. Systemic issues affect all phases of the power value chain from generation to distribution thereby forcing Nigerians to rely on self-generation.
In addition, demand-side management proves to be ineffective in reducing line loss in electric power transmission and distribution. In Nigeria, the booming economy directly increases the electricity requirements. Grids have been constructed in urban areas, but not in rural areas, so that some poor regions have no access to electricity.
Nigeria needs to cultivate more engineers and participators in power sector to have better planning of the power generation, distribution and so on.
The government is expected to create a more favorable business environment to attack more investors to power sector.
What projects is Huawei currently doing in Nigeria to improve the power sector and how will Huawei’s involvement in the power sector directly impact on the end-users in Nigeria?
Huawei has provided the key technologies in the electric power industry for over past 2 decades, serving more than 160 power companies with its innovative ICT solutions in 65 countries worldwide helping customers build a better connected smart grid.
In Nigeria, Huawei is working with local partners to deploy off-grid solar power station in rural area, which bring lights to thousands of houses in the villages. It provides another solution for the power shortage in Nigeria by renewable energy.
Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) solutions have been proposed to Nigerian electric power companies to reduce the transmission line loss and to improve the efficiency of metering and billing. Huawei’s AMI solutions with self developed HiPLC chip breakthrough the challenges of power industry broadband PLC technology to guarantee a 100% success of daily reading, meeting the high requirement of accurate metering.
With the deployment of Huawei smart meters, the management line losses are reduced. AMI simplifies the interaction between power companies and customers by allowing power companies to keep precise control on power consumption and consumer-use optimization. Consumers can pay by real-time consumption instead of an estimated prepayment.
(In Brazil, the Huawei transmission solution helps Copel build an all service network, simplifying the network structure and reducing O&M costs by 20%.
In Ethiopia, Huawei assists Ethiopia Electric Power Corporation in building an optical fibre composite overhead round 10 monster covering over 1,000 kilometres paid in the solid foundation for power network automation.
In Australia, the Huawei AMI solution enables a university customer to implement smart building management, reducing the annual power consumption by 62.5% through remote control of lights, air conditioning systems and other devices.
In China, the Huawei telepresence system provides the China State Grid, the largest power company in the world, with an administrative and emergency video conference system reducing business travel cost by 30% and improving overall work efficiency. )
Huawei’s entry into ICT in the telecoms industry is said to have significantly lowered costs in infrastructure development. Can Nigeria look forward to a similar outcome in the power sector?
With increasing demand of power consumption, electricity is one of the most important industry of Huawei, in Africa, we believe power Grid companies are facing strong challenges of enhance operation efficiency; therefore, we believe helping our customer achieving their objectives would be priority.
As we show in this exhibit, Huawei ICT technology and solutions including AMI, transmission, smart grid connections are all aimed at help our customer achieve higher efficiency and lower operation cost .
As a global leader in ICT, what specific plans does Huawei have in terms of technology transfer and therefore Local capacity development?
The electricity industry is one of Huawei’s strategic investment priorities. Huawei has been involved in the electricity industry for over 20 years and accumulated rich experience. Through continuous innovations, Huawei has served seven of the world’s TOP 10 electric power companies and more than 160 enterprises in the electricity industry around the world, helping them construct more than 100,000 substations.
Huawei will focus on the ICT field in the electricity industry and stick to its long-term policy of WIN-WIN cooperation.
Working with more than 2,800 partners in the field of enterprise businesses, Huawei is committed to providing enterprises around the world with leading ICT products and solutions. Major partners of Huawei in the electricity industry include SAP, Siemens, the Nari Group, Schneider Electric, Alstom, and China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC).
Why is the technology/AMI/ Huawei smart grid solutions not being used nationwide?
Huawei is currently working with some Nigerian electric power companies to deploy the AMI solutions and a large amount of the devices have been equipped with information and communication technology to be smart.
With Huawei’s global capability and local experience, Huawei is ready and confident to provide Nigeria with the smart girds solutions nationwide.
The Electricity Meters Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (EMMAN) has called on the Federal Government to assist its members’ firms from folding up earlier this year, what’s your opinion on this issue?
Huawei a global leading information and communication solutions provider, our products and solutions have been deployed in over 170 countries and regions, serving 1/3 of the world’s population. As a multiple-national company, Huawei is committed to be a localised company.
The power industry in Nigeria is high competitive and it is an open market. In a globalised world, manufacturers of various countries are seeking a fair competition and cooperation. Huawei is not a meters manufacturer. Huawei’s focus in power sector is to upgrade the industry by its information and communication technologies via AMI, smart gird solutions etc.
Huawei welcomes its innovative products being integrated by Nigerian partners to share the business success.Huawei is willing to further the cooperation with Nigerian manufacturers by technology exchanges and etc. to build a healthy industry ecosystem.
Bala Augie
