A plan to deliver electricity to about 25m Nigerians whose communities are off the grid has commenced in Jigawa State flagged off by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Speaking at the event, Professor Osinbajo restated the determination of the Buhari administration to ensure that millions more will now have access to cheap and environmentally friendly renewable power.
The project, which is coming under the Economic Sustainability Plan, Prof. Osinbajo said the launch of the Solar Power Naija programme is taking off with the Jangefe Community in Roni Local Government Area (in the Kazaure Emirate) of the State and will get to all geopolitical zones in the country soon.
“After Jangefe, ” according to the VP, the rollout will continue “across the 6 geopolitical zones in Edo, Lagos, Adamawa, Anambra, Kebbi and Plateau. Other Solar companies are also in the pipeline for the Solar Power Naija facility to continue the march to 5 million connections during the life of this administration,” the Vice President said.
The scheme will then go to the entire 36 States and the FCT covering 25million Nigerians in the end.
The commencement of the Solar Power Naija programme means the community will get 1,000 Solar Home Systems connections for its about 5,000 population.
The Vice President, flagged off the commencement of the installation in Jigawa, in what is part of a 100,000 scheme with A-SOLAR, a local solar power company implementing aspects of the ESP Solar Power Naija scheme.
The Jangefe community in Jigawa, which is the first location to be covered by the A-Solar company, will pay monthly energy payments until the systems are fully paid for at the point in which there will be a transfer of ownership to each consumer in the community.
The Vice President noted that the “President had emphasised that we could no longer rely solely on the grid if we were to electrify the whole country. Which meant that we had to develop an effective strategy for decentralizing power supply. Two obvious things to do were, first to think of implementing more off-grid solutions and to use renewable energy especially solar power.”
