Nigeria’s Rural Electrification Agency (REA) has announced plans to set up a Renewable Energy University in the nation’s capital, Abuja. The proposed university is poised to be the first of its kind in the West African sub region.
This disclosure was made by the Managing Director of the REA, Abba Aliyu, during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with 10 Renewable Energy Service Companies (RESCOs) including Oando Clean Energy for the generation of 948MW from renewable energy sources.
Director Aliyu also said the Federal Government has approved the establishment of a $300,000 (500 million naira) Renewable Asset Management Company targeted at raising over $600 million (N1 trillion) for intervention in the renewable energy industry in the absence of loans and grants.
“And to ensure the sustainability of all these interventions, the Rural Electrification Agency has secured the approval for the establishment of a Renewable Asset Management Company.
“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, Nigeria is set to independently continue the drive to electricity access and infrastructure in the future.
Aliyu stated that the company is expected to begin operations later this year.
“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 the cost of governance, the REA has secured over $64 million (N100 billion) to bring solar energy to power Nigeria’s public sector institutions. He stated that the project will start in a few weeks.
The renewable energy project will be realised as part of a $950-million initiative called Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES), which aims to promote the domestic production of solar photovoltaic (PV) components.
The solar manufacturing and power production project is financed by the World Bank and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
REA expects Nigeria to become home to another 1 gigawatt solar panel assembly hub as the country prepares to sign a joint development agreement with global investment firm Infracorp.
This is just the latest move by Nigeria in increasing renewable energy investment after a $200 million agreement with WeLight, to deploy hundreds of renewable mini grids was reached earlier this week.
The agreement which aims to provide reliable electricity to millions of people in rural communities and surrounding urban centers is seen as a significant step toward achieving the goal of increasing the share of renewable energy in the country’s electricity mix from 22% to 50%.
