The Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, has stated that solar electrification will be the backbone of expanding electricity supply to Nigerians not connected to the national grid.
The minister, who spoke at the launch of the Africa Mini-grids Programme (AMP) in Abuja, said solar has proven to be a sustainable path to Nigeria’s energy challenges.
He said the AMP which is a pilot face is organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in partnership with the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), with the deployment of 23 solar mini-grids that will power 50,000 households across the country.
“Renewable energy, especially solar technology, is not an alternative source of power. It is not a diesel generator solution but an integral part of our national power architecture. So when we talk about hydro, solar and wind, they are not generators. They are a source of power generation. Today in Nigeria, for the first time, we have a solar farm that is producing 200 megawatts of power.”
“So our approach as a country is to deploy technology appropriately to meet the unique energy needs and the realities of the different communities. In this project, we are looking at areas where our transmission lines and transformers have not gotten to yet. So we want to reach the last mile using mini-grids and serving the communities, the businesses, the healthcare, the education sectors, and the rest of it.”
On his part, the Managing Director of REA, Aliyu Abba, said the AMP is one programme that connects electricity with productivity, that connects public funding, grant financing with private sector financing.
He noted that there are communities across Nigeria that can’t utilise their economic potential due to lack of electricity and the deployment of solar mini-grids is changing that.
The UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Mohamed Malick Fall, said the mini-grids matters because they will bring clean and affordable energy to every community as energy is not about electricity alone but power for hospitals, schools and businesses.
“It’s clean job for young people, it drives economic growth and it improves life. And let’s say we talk a lot about sustainable development but there is no sustainable development without sustainable energy,” he said.