The Federal Government, yesterday, said it expects the renewable energy sector to contribute about 9,000 Megawatts of power supply to the country by year 2030 as part of the general vision to end energy poverty in Nigeria.
The Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, who disclosed this in Abuja at the opening of a summit on accelerated scale up of renewable and distributed energy resources in Nigeria organized by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, said the government was determined to ensure the provision of affordable and reliable power supply to industries and other institutions.
He said: “It is disheartening that for decades, Nigerians have been grappling with the challenges of unreliable grid supply with frequent power outages and load shedding severely impacting businesses, industries, and households.
Minister of Power
“The lack of grid reliability has hampered economic productivity and deters foreign investment thereby exacerbating unemployment and economic stagnation. We are determined to end that!
Chief Adelabu pointed out that “despite the challenges we face, we are committed to sustaining efforts to de-risk renewable energy generation through the programs such as the Interconnected Mini-Grid Acceleration Scheme (IMAS), with technical support from EU and the German government, which is expected to catalyze the deployment of 23 mini-grids across 11 states of the federation to serve over 138,000 Nigerians.
“Nigeria’s commitments to developing renewable energy”. peaking earlier, the Chairman of NERC, Engr. Sanusi Garba, said te push to scale up renewable eergy supply would ensure that rural communities were quickly connected to modern sources of electricity.
Also speaking, Godfrey Ogbemudia, European Union Delegation in Nigeria, said having spent about 200 million Euros in funding various programmes in the power sector between 2008 and 2020, the EU would be spending another 100 million Euros between 2021 and 2027 to provide additional 400MW from renewable sources to supply electricity to about five million Nigerians.
“The EU has partnered with Nigeria in promoting the adoption of renewable energy in its energy system since 2008, committing approximately EUR 200 million grants until 2020 on various projects focusing on policy, regulations, building the capacity of market participants, and facilitating access to finance in both public and private sectors. As of 2021, we have renewed our efforts to raise our funding further with EUR 100 million primarily through innovative financing, technical assistance, and energy infrastructure projects.
“This will translate into some 400MW of new renewable energy capacity to be installed by 2027, benefiting over five million Nigerians, saving approximately 500,000 tonnes of CO2”, he added.
Olaitan Ibrahim