The Rural Electrification Agency (REA) has disclosed plans to begin implementation of the ‘Desert to Power Project’, aimed to harness the abundant sunlight in the northern region of the country to generate renewable energy for communities.
The project is expected to be funded by $700 million fund by African Development Bank.
Abba Aliyu, Managing Director/CEO, REA, disclosed this at a stakeholder engagement workshop held in Abuja on Wednesday. According to him, the Agency, through the Nigerian Electrification Project, had deployed a total of 124 mini-grids across the country, deployed over 25,580 solar home systems with a combined capacity of 16.6MW.
The project he said impacted 183 communities, across 36 states and the federal capital territory with over 195,000 connections made. “We also just concluded the deployment of high-level mini-grids in seven universities and one teaching hospital.
“Next year, we will start deploying, start commissioning projects. We are also in the process of conceiving, designing and start the implementation of another project called the Desert to Power Project to be funded by the African Development Bank, potentially a $700 million project as well.
“We also, by the commitment of the Mr. President, will start another ambitious project, the National Power Sector Solarization Initiative, an ambitious, domesticated, public sector funded project that will start next year. The framework and the funding of this project had already been provided by Mr. President and we would announce it after the approval of the budget next year,” he said.
He therefore called on the state government to leverage the Electricy Act and take advantage of these different opportunities being created to provide electricity access to citizens at the state level.
According to him, the framework has been established and the state needs to create an enabling environment for the private sector to feel comfortable to come to this state and deploy this infrastructure.
“Secondly, the private sector. A lot has been provided for the private sector to benefit from these initiatives. We have created the framework on that Desert to Power, we’ll create a framework on that National Power Sector Solarization Initiative, Rural Electrification Fund and a framework on the Capital Project. What is needed is just for the private sector to ensure quality standard of their implementation framework and harness these opportunities that have been created on these different initiatives,” he added.
In his remarks, Adebayo Adelabu, Minister of power noted that energy poverty has been a persistent challenge for decades, especially in rural communities where millions lack access to electricity. He stressed that the dichotomy between on-grid and off-grid solutions should no longer be seen as a division but as complementary components of a holistic energy strategy.
Adelabu noted that as part of effort to deliver on power projects across the country, President Tinubu at the recent Federal Executive Council meeting approved €161 million worth of contracts for the upgrade of power substations under the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI).
Represented by Sunday Owolabi, the Director of Renewable and Rural Power Access, the minister said, “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 team at the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) have also been hard at work as we approach the kick-off of the Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) programme, which I believe many of you must have heard about. Our partners at the World Bank have committed $750 million to this groundbreaking project and we are certain that over 13 million Nigerians will be impacted through the DARES.
“As part of the implementation of the Federal Government’s Rural Electrification Fund (REF) and as part of the REA’s forward-leaning approach to solution-based energy access initiatives, I am happy to witness the activation of the e-H.E.A.R.T, a key initiative targeted as sustainably energizing healthcare institutions, education, agriculture, rural communities are transportation.”
He assured that innovative and impactful initiatives such as these will continue to enable the nation scale up energy access
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