Managing Director, Rural Electrification Agency (REA), Engr. Abba Aliyu has said the Federal Government has approved the establishment of N500 million Renewable Asset Management Company targeted at raising N1 trillion for intervention in the industry in the absence of loans and grants.
He spoke during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with 10 Renewable Energy Service Company (RESCO) including Oando Clean Energy for the generation of 948 megawatts (Mw) from renewable energy.
Aliyu said: “And to ensure the sustainability of all these interventions, the Rural Electrification Agency has secured the approval for the establishment of Renewable Asset Management Company.
“A company that will warehouse on its balance sheet all the mega assets, infrastructure that will be deployed at the universities, close to N500 million worth of assets.
“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, he said Nigeria will be standing on its own to continue to drive electricity access and infrastructure in the next many years to come.
He added that “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 that cost of governance, we secured this N100 billion to solarize the public sector institutions.
According to him, the project will start in the next few weeks.
He said REA has had advanced discussions with Japanese International Development Corporation for additional co-financing funding of 200 million dollar that will be added to the 750 million dollar the Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) project, making the total funding for DARES to be 950 million dollars.
Among the companies that signed the collaborative agreement or MoU was Oando Clean Energy that undertook to execute 1,200Mw.
He announced that the agency is planning to establish the first Renewable Energy University in Africa in Abuja.
The university, according to him, will be the hub of talent development in Nigeria.
He said: “And we intend to crystallize the emergence of the first renewable university in Africa here in Abuja that will be the hub of talent development across the country.”
Speaking, its President, Adewale Ogunbanjo, said by next year the company’s 600MW should be ready for supply to the domestic market.
He said, “We will be rolling out, by this time next year actually, the first 600 megawatt line will be up.
“And we will be able to begin to supply this local market, but not just Nigeria, but also the continent as a whole.”
He said the firm will be the first on the African continent, solar modular assembly plant with a recycling line.
“So we are building a solar modular assembly plant in Nigeria that will not only roll out solar panels, but also be able to take solar panels that are no longer working, maybe due to age or dysfunction, and recycle them into raw materials that we can then send back to those who use them for different purposes. Just transition cannot happen if we don’t retain value on the African continent,” he explained.
