The Programme Manager, Lighting Africa/Nigeria, Allwell Nwankwo, has said Nigeria will benefit from the Lighting Africa-supported Regional Off-Grid Electrification Project, which aims to increase electricity access to households, businesses, and communities through modern off-grid electrification across Western Africa.
The Lighting Africa programme is a joint initiative of the International Finance Corporation and the World Bank.
“As one of the two pilot countries under ROGEP, suitable and sustainable mechanisms to electrify public institutions in Nigeria will be identified,” Nwankwo said on the organisation’s website.
He noted that the Federal Government launched the Nigeria Electrification Project with financing support from the World Bank ($350m) and African Development Bank ($200m).
According to him, NEP is a first-of-its-kind project in Nigeria to deploy off-grid energy systems to address the energy deficit in the country.
He said, “Such an ambitious project not only affirms the viability of distributed energy as a strong option for mass electrification but also provides tangible wins for all stakeholders in the sector, including consumers whose energy challenges are now being tackled.
“It also runs in synchrony with the government’s Vision 30-30-30 which aims to generate 30GW of energy by 2030, 30 per cent of which should come from renewable energy sources.”
Nwankwo noted that the Lighting Africa/Nigeria Programme launched in 2015 had so far enabled nearly six million people to have access to clean energy.
Source: Punch Newspaper
