FG Secures $750M Loan to Boost Power Supply Nationwide
Considering electricity insufficiency from the national grid and boosted by a $750 million loan from the World Bank, the federal government has shifted its focus to renewable energy as a solution to speeding up delivery to the education, health, agriculture, rural communities, and transport sectors.
With electric supply cut off from about 80 million Nigerians, the government said the e-HEART project is to deploy mini-grids to address energy access problems in rural communities while creating sustainable economies and reducing rural-urban drift in Nigeria.
The other aspect of the strategy is another allocation of $700 million from the African Development Bank, AfDB, to finance the “desert to power” project, which intends to collect abundant sunlight in the northern part of Nigeria to renew energy for communities.
Speaking at a stakeholder engagement workshop convened by the Rural Electrification Agency, REA, the minister of power, Adebayo Adelabu, said that off-grid electricity supply was now at the heart of the government’s strategy for bridging the electricity supply gap.
Adebayo, who was represented by the Director, Renewable and Rural Power Access, Dr Sunday Owolabi, expressed optimism that the various projects in the renewable energy sector would touch at least 13 million Nigerians.
“At the recent Federal Executive Council, FEC, His Excellency approved contracts valued at N161 million for upgrading power substations under the Presidential Power Initiative, PPI. I am happy to assure you that we are on course to deliver an additional 150MW to the grid while impacting 14 existing substations and establishing 21 new ones.
The following excerpt was taken from some event 2013: “The team at the Rural Electrification Agency, REA, have also been hard at work as we approach the launch of the Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up, DARES, programme. I am sure many of you have heard of this programme already. The partners at the World Bank have put in place a parameter funding of $750 million into this project that is common to many of us, and we are certain that it is going to touch over 13 million Nigerians through the DARES (Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up)”.
Speaking also was the Managing Director/CEO, REA, Engr. Abba Aliyu, who remarked that 124 mini-grids and 25,580 solar home systems have been mobilized under the joint capacity of the Rural Electrification Fund to a total of 16.6 MW.
He revealed that out of the total connections so far made, 195,198 had been made in 183 communities and 12 markets. According to Aliyu, this project will sustain continuous power supply for 3,700 primary healthcare centres, 25 schools per state and FCT, 25 communities in each state and FCT, and solar powered tricycles and charging stations spread across the 36 states and FCT.
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