SUS mentioned in Article “Initiative solar energy in Nigeria” in Dichtbij Almere

Article Almere Dichtbij, 28 January 2016, By Jeroen Oosterheert, Dichtbij editor
ALMERE – Imagine that your aunt is minister of Environment in Nigeria. You visited Nigeria a few times and thought: ’,How can I help these people by improving their lives. The twenty years old Severiano Stam and his aunt, Mrs. Amina Mohammed, who is the current minister of Environment in the African country, both have a good idea how to do this.

,, We have been there several times, after all, my mother comes from there too. And one of the strangest things I noticed is why so often there is a failure of electricity supply, while so many people live and work in this country. I live in Muziekwijk (estate Almere) and therefore I travelled many times along the sun island in the Noorderplassen. This solar island is a renewable energy project with solar panels, enabling the electricity delivery of 400 households in Almere. Why isn’t there such an island actually in Nigeria, I was thinking? With this idea, I went to my aunt and she was very enthusiastic about this idea, “says Stam, who is doing a pilot training.

The Almere resident started looking for more information about the solar island in Almere and came in contact with Gert Breugem, an official of the municipality of Almere and owner of SUS – Smart Urban Solutions, a firm that works on sustainable urban development in developing countries. ,, It is a brilliant idea and we like to help him with the strategic planning and development. The fact that his aunt is the Minister of Environment makes it all much simpler to start with such a project. We are still at the beginning, but we are hopeful that we are able to create something like the creation of a solar island, over there in Nigeria, “Breugem said.
,, I obviously talked about this several times with my aunt. And it seems to me that there are many opportunities to start building such solar islands per housing estate. By doing so these estates do have far more guarantee of electricity supply and besides this will contribute to the creation of jobs. A winning situation. The idea is that we are planning to visit Nigeria to discuss what will be the first step that leads towards a first successful project in the area of sustainable energy. I truly hope that we will achieve our first result within a year “, the student told us.
SUS is a think (and working) tank stimulating initiatives and developments in the area of sustainable urban development in developing countries, as best practices for institutes and partners all over the globe.