Renewable Energy Utilization for Rural Industrialization and Economic Improvement in Abia State

The perplexing and inefficient energy generation and distribution in Nigeria may not enable the efforts on rural industrialization, and the few existing industries are suffocating, collapsing and closing down due to the high cost of running plants with gasoline, gas and petrol in order to remain in business. The paper investigated renewable energy utilization for rural industrialization and economic improvement in Abia state. The objectives of the study are to examine the need for energy efficiency policy implementation strategy for economic improvement, and to investigate the role of renewable energy in the advancement of rural industrialization in Abia state. The theory of planned behaviour and descriptive survey design were adopted. However, the study found that there is need for energy efficiency policy implementation strategy, and that renewable energy has a role to the advancement of rural industrialization in Abia state. Based on the findings, the study recommends that government should install wind energy farm facilities in potential rural industrial areas across Abia state through public private partnership investment to enable the efficiency of power/energy supply that is environmentally friendly, and government should review the energy policy of the state in order to strategically adopt workable approaches that can ensure the realization of the goal of building wind and solar energy farms in rural areas of the state to promote industrialization and economic growth.