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Nigeria is gradually moving towards a vehicular industry driven by non-fossil fuel. Almost five months after unveiling the country’s first electric vehicles by Hyundai, the federal government on Tuesday commissioned the first solar-powered electric vehicle charging station at the University of Lagos (UNILAG).
An electric vehicle charging station connects an electric vehicle (EV) to a source of electricity to recharge electric cars. They are becoming a common landscape feature worldwide with the increasing shift from fossil-energy cars. There are now 26,000 electric vehicle charging stations open to the public in the U.S., with more than 84,000 plugs as at July 2020.
An initiative of the National Automotive Design and Development Agency (NADDC), under the Elective Vehicle Pilot Project, the commissioning was attended by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo inside the university’s Faculty of Engineering, NADDC Board Chairman, Senator Osita Izunaso; and NADDC Director General, Jelani Aliyu.
Others were UNILAG Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Oluwatowin Ogundipe; and Chief Executive Officer of Stallion Group, Anant Badjatya, with many other dignitaries.
The minister described the program as another initiative of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to promote advanced technology transfer and the development of sophisticated human capital in the country.
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He said the charging station is aimed at promoting applicable local solutions for vehicle electrification in the country. He said the project will offer students first-hand experience with the latest innovations in mobility and renewable power technology.
His words: “It is strategized to be an effective platform for focused Research and Development into even more applicable Vehicle Electrification solutions for Nigeria and Africa.
“For my ministry (the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment), programs such as these are the lifeblood of everything we are trying to achieve.
“It is, after all, a proven fact among advanced nations, that the key to successful industrialization is strategic human capital & capacity development in state of the art technologies.”
The NADDC is committed to promoting the adoption, development, manufacturing and usage of advanced technology in the country’s automotive sector, said Aliyu while mentioning that earlier in the year, the minister had unveiled the first Nigerian assembled electric vehicle, the Hyundai Kona EV.
The commissioning of the NADDC Solar Powered EV Charging Station in Lagos reinforces government’s vision and commitment to the protection of the environment through production of zero emissions vehicles.
His words: “This EV Charging Station is 100% Solar Powered. The installation consist of 60 PV Monocrystalline Solar arrays (panels), which have a capacity of 86.4 kilowatts per hour, there are 3 online-offline 5KVA Hybrid inverters synchronized together to give 15 KVA/48 WATTS, and we have 36 units of Deep Cycle Gel batteries with an output of 48 volts/19 and 0“The Power bank consists of 36 units of dry cell, deep cycle batteries of up to 95Kwh storage capacity.
“The system provides ordinary 13A and 15A sockets that can support all types normal chargers. The station also provides a 7.4kw CCS fast charger and can support up to 11kw types.”
