Assessing the Technical Offshore Wind Energy Potential in Lagos, Nigeria

Abstract

Abstract Looking at the current state of things globally and the greenhouse effect renewable energy sources are no longer a matter of choice. The population of Lagos coupled with the perpetually erratic power supply makes renewable energy the new and sure way to go especially as an alternative supply of electricity. The nation as a whole has a peak generation of 5300MW on average which is only about 30% of its actual needs. The use of renewable energy in Nigeria is growing but so is the population this study seeks to ascertain the possibility of using offshore wind energy as an alternative power supply in Lagos Nigeria. The onshore wind energy resource has been fairly explored but its counterpart offshore wind energy has not been explored. This study focuses on the technical assessment of offshore wind resources on the Gulf of Guinea around the Lagos Nigeria region. Having analysed wind data from existing literature and analysed offshore wind farm construction the paper presents a technical layout of the number of turbines per the specified area and the potential output using Aerodyn SCD 8.0/168 as a case study. The results show that the annual energy demand of about 96.36TWh in Lagos can be met with the annual generation of about 191.2TWh for a wind farm at the shore and 200TWh for waters with depth less than 50m.