22nd November, 2017
The Federal Government on Wednesday, urged international development partners and private sector operators to assist in providing required funds to develop power projects in the country.
Mr Louis Edozie, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Power made the call at a workshop on Regional Off-Grid Electrification Projects (ROGEP) in Abuja.
The workshop has the theme “Promoting Private Investments in Standalone Solar Systems in West Africa and the Sahel region“.
The organisers said the workshop was designed to discuss ways to increase access to sustainable electricity services in Nigeria and the ECOWAS.
The ROGEP, funded by World Bank with implementation target of four years, has the mandate of providing universal access to electricity for the ECOWAS region by 2030.
ROGEP also seeks to work with the government in Nigeria to improve the enabling environment for private sector investment in electricity sector in the following areas:
Technical assistance activities to improve off-grid market ecosystem, support financial intermediary to finance service providers to electrify households and commercial enterprises and support service providers to electrify public institutions.
Edozie said human capital, materials and financing were key to developing power projects in the region.
The permanent secretary, however, said that Nigeria had the required manpower and could get the needed materials, given the provision of fund.
Edozie, who identified fund as the major challenge, urged participants to work more in bringing money for the development of power projects in Nigeria.
“We have talked much, but we needed to take action and to take action, you need manpower, you need money and you need materials.
“Manpower is very easy because there are so many good resource persons, smart people, so many intelligent people working on power projects, so manpower is a problem.
“Electricity industry is a big industry so the materials are everywhere, if you have money you can buy them. So we believe the problem is money.
“I want to encourage our development partners to help us by bringing in some money into the projects,’’ he said.
The Acting Director, Renewable Energy Department, Ministry of Power, Mr Faruk Yusuf said Nigerian government had developed workable energy policies for the development of electricity sector.
He said the country required the support of development partners to accelerate the development of solar energy production and other renewable energy potential in the country.
Yusuf said Federal Government, through the Ministry of Power and some partners, had successfully developed some pilot scheme of solar projects in the country.
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The acting director said government, through relevant policies, was addressing the identified barriers inhibiting participation of the private sector in the renewable energy development.
He identified the barriers and concerns of the private sector players in the sector to include the fear of having stranded investment, expansion challenges.
Other barriers he said were; cost reflective tariff, re-cooping investment and the safety of investments in the communities among others.
He, however, said there was the need to encourage the private sector to invest in electricity production in the rural areas.
Yusuf emphasised the need to educate the rural people on the workings of the electricity industry.
High point of the workshop was the presentation of papers by resource persons.
Some of the papers include the ”Regulatory Framework and Environment to Promote Off-Grid Electrification in Nigeria”, ”Federal Government Strategy on Rural Electrification Agency” among others.