Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), Abba Aliyu, has disclosed that more than 85 million Nigerians, representing about 40 per cent of the country’s population, still lack reliable access to grid electricity.
He disclosed this during the signing of a Joint Development Agreement between the agency and Ecotech Development Nigeria Limited to establish a solar panel and battery assembly and manufacturing facility in Nigeria.
Aliyu who decried Nigeria’s dependence on imported renewable energy equipment despite its abundant solar resources, described the agreement as a major milestone in Nigeria’s renewable energy drive, saying it marked the first time a Tier-1 Chinese renewable energy company had committed to establishing manufacturing and assembly operations in the country.
He said although the REA had extended electricity to millions of previously underserved Nigerians through initiatives such as the Rural Electrification Fund, the Nigerian Electrification Project and the Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-Up Project, the challenge of inadequate grid access remained significant.
Speaking on the country’s dependence on foreign-made solar equipment, Aliyu noted that virtually every solar installation in Nigeria relies on components manufactured abroad.
He said, “Every electrified community across Nigeria today tells the same quiet story. The panel on the rooftop was engineered abroad. The battery beneath it was assembled abroad. The inverter that ties it together was also manufactured outside the country.
“Nigeria supplied the roof, the need and the market, while someone else supplied the technology and equipment.”
Aliyu said the continued importation of solar equipment has deprived Nigeria of jobs, technical capacity and foreign exchange that could have been retained locally.
“Every dollar we spend importing solar modules is a dollar that could have been paid to Nigerian technicians or invested in Nigerian factories. We have been financing someone else’s industrial growth with our own electrification budget,” he added.
He said under the agreement, the REA, through its renewable asset management subsidiary, would facilitate the annual offtake of up to 200 megawatts of solar photovoltaic modules and 200 megawatt-hours of battery energy storage systems manufactured and assembled in Nigeria by Ecotech, explaining that the arrangement was a non-exclusive framework designed to promote local manufacturing and would not override existing public procurement regulations.
