19 hours Ago By Nse Anthony - Uko
The Rural Electrification Agency (REA) of Nigeria is taking significant steps towards localising the renewable energy sector by establishing in-country capacity of 1.2 gigawatts (GW) photovoltaic (PV) panels assembling plants, to boost the country’s foreign exchange earnings. This initiative aims to position Nigeria as the renewable energy hub of West Africa, addressing the significant challenge of the 86 million Nigerians currently without access to electricity.
This is as the agency signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with 10 Renewable Energy Service Companies (RESCOs) including Oando Clean Energy for the generation of 948MW from renewable energy. Speaking at the ceremony in Abuja, the REA managing director, Abba Aliyu that already, on record, through IVS intervention, Nigeria has crystallised the emergence of about 600 megawatt PV panels assembly and manufacturing capacity in-country. According to him, among the companies that signed the collaborative agreement or Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was Oando Clean Energy that undertook to execute 110MW.
‘It is on record. Oando has a capacity of 110 megawatt capacity. one of our partners, is about to complete a 250 megawatt capacity, in Abuja and a photovoltaic company, has already started production of PV panels in Lagos free trade zone of 100 megawatt capacity.
And we have the Green Connect, another company that’s about to complete 150 megawatt capacity of PV panels assembly plant,” he said. Aliyu also said the federal government has approved the establishment of N500 million Renewable Asset Management Company targeted at raising N1 trillion for intervention in the industry in the absence of loans and grants. His words: “And to ensure the sustainability of all these interventions, the Rural Electrification Agency has secured the approval for the establishment of Renewable Asset Management Company.
“A company that will warehouse on its balance sheet all the mega assets, infrastructure that will be deployed at the universities, close to N500 million worth of assets. “This company will warehouse these assets and will leverage on the assets to raise close to N1 trillion so that we will continue to intervene even if there is no availability of loans and grants.” With the company, he said Nigeria will be standing on its own to continue to drive electricity access and infrastructure in the next many years to come.
He added: “So that ramp up is also something that we have started and we intend to make sure that it comes to reality before the end of the year.” He also noted that to reduce that cost of governance, we secured this N100 billion to solarize the public sector institutions. According to him, the project will start in the next few weeks.
He revealed that REA has had advanced discussions with Japanese International Development Corporation for additional co-financing funding of 200 million dollar that will be added to the 750 million dollar the Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) project, making the total funding for DARES to be 950 million dollars. He announced that the agency is planning to establish the first Renewable Energy University in Africa in Abuja. The university, according to him, will be the hub of talent development in Nigeria.
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