FUTA Steps Up Renewable Energy Initiative

[Shola Sholaz]

As part of its contribution to solving the country's power challenge the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) has stepped up its initiative on Renewable Energy.
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To further harness its potentials in this sector, a colloquium tagged 2015 Renewable Energy summit was held on Tuesday, March 24 where experts from various fields charted the way forward.
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Convener of the Summit and Director, Centre for Renewable Energy Technology (CRET), FUTA, Prof. Olurinde Lafe while highlighting the vision and mission of the Centre said purposeful collaboration which is crucial to attaining the goal of Renewable Energy is possible in a business environment that fosters innovation.
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He called on Universities, research centres, industries and government agencies to come together through purposeful collaboration achievable by having proposals and other knowledge infrastructure that can develop new technologies to tackle energy challenge currently facing the nation.
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He said "Innovation is the process of transforming knowledge into new products, processes and services which, in turn generate new economic benefits. For this process to succeed, a complete system must be available that supports the movement of a new idea from initial concept, through research and development, to a ready-for-market product".
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On how to achieve a FUTA Campus Power Supply (FCPS), Professor Lafe welcomed proposals from individuals, Departments, Units to come together so as to build a formidable power house for FUTA.
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To achieve this, he said his Centre is always ready to collate ideas from the public that will eventually translate to achieving uninterruptible power supply everywhere on FUTA Campus at the most cost effective and economically sustainable rate.
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Lafe also said that the University stands to improve on its Internally Generated Revenue and also develop its capacity through staff and students involvement in the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the Campus Power Supply. The don further encouraged the University Community on constant collaboration, innovation and commercialization of the power supply when generated to solve the power challenge currently facing the University and its environ.
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He urged the Management of the University not to relent on its effort to further take FUTA to the market place. He said "As a University of Technology, the nation rely heavily on us to proffer solution to the nation's energy challenge. We cannot continue to depend on the Federal Government alone. The Government has a role to play, while the ivory towers have theirs too. Let us position our Institution as the one that has what it takes to proffer solution to the nation's energy challenge. As a Centre, we are ready to take the challenge. Many Institutions home and abroad, are willing to collaborate with us. At the moment, we are working with some of them and very soon the result will start to show."