Determining The Electrical Energy Potentials of Otamiri River for Effective Harnessing and Sustainable Economic Development

Energy demand is increasing geometrically all over the world and equating demand and supply of energy has become a burden to inhabitants especially the developing countries like Nigeria. Nigeria is blessed with enormous resources that could make life easy if properly harnessed. Renewable energy technology is gaining tremendous break through all over the world. Many are coming through Solar, Wind, tidal, River etc. Many rural communities are endowed with these natural resources which cannot be depleted either due to their geographical location or access to where they situated. Otamiri river is one of the rivers located in Imo state of Nigeria and its potential has not been tapped. This study was carried out to see how Otamiri potential could be discover for electrical energy production. The method used is floating method. This comprise s using a floater, stop watch, canoe or flying boat, measuring devices, calculation of the depts., width and noting the time the floater reached a specific measured distance. The values obtained are used to calculate the flow rate of the river. Having known the flow rate, water head etc then the total energy that could be obtained from the river was calculated and this came to be 80.58 KW and an annual value of 670.6 MW. In conclusion, the research successfully achieved its objectives by discovering the power level Otamiri can generate through mini hydro technology hourly, daily and yearly.