Company to earmark 13m pounds to support solar power generation

Solar Nigeria (SN), a Department for International Development (DFID) funded programme, says it will provide additional grant of 13 million pounds to help reputable companies involved in the production of solar energy in Nigeria.

The Programme Coordinator of SN, Mrs Ifunanya Nwandu, announced this at a renewable energy forum organized by “Power for ALL“ on Friday in Abuja.

Solar Nigeria is a DFID funded programmed that began in 2014.

The programme was designed to end in 2020 with the mandate to provide grants and technical assistance to companies involved in providing household solar technologies.

Nwandu said that the grant would help strong companies to accelerate their expansion to provide solar energy for 25 million Nigerians .

According to her, SN has also improved energy access for over 1.5 million people since it commenced operation in 2014.

She said that the organisation had been involved in delivering clean, reliable and affordable solar energy to Nigerians.

She said this was possible by accelerating the private markets for off-grid solar solutions.

According to her, the SN programme had also earlier provided 38 .3 million pounds to Kaduna and Lagos state governments for various developmental projects.

She said part of the projects had resulted in the construction of 175 schools and 11 clinics in Lagos and 34 primary health clinics in Kaduna with solar installations.

She said that the combined projects in both states had resulted in the provision of 6MW of solar power.

According to her, in 2016, more than 166,000 solar systems were acquired on commercial terms by individual consumers from companies who benefited from the grants provided by SN.

She said that SN was also helping to demonstrate how solar systems could be technically viable to drive growth in the private sector solar market

Nwandu said SN was committed to collaborating with the Federal Government and state governments to improve renewable energy to health and education facilities, particularly in the northern part of Nigeria.