Page 16 - AfrElec Week 45 2022
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ELECTRIFICATION
AfrElec AfrElec
Nigeria gives $64.8mn
to private companies for
electrification project
NIGERIA THE Nigerian federal government has disbursed underserved communities across Nigeria.
$64.8mn to private companies for Abuja’s Nige- Nigeria continues to confront electricity
ria Electrification Project (NEP), the Rural Elec- shortages, with the Buhari government facing
trification Agency (REA) has announced. calls to modernize the grid or make the sector
According to Nigeria’s Daily Post, which saw economical for stakeholders up and down the
an REA statement, the money that has been chain.
granted to private sector partners has come The World Bank has estimated that Nige-
from a $350mn loan from the World Bank and ria needs around $100bn in the next 10 years
a $200mn loan from the African Development to tackle the country’s unreliable power supply
Bank (AfDB), both of which are strong support- while according to USAID, it has the potential
ers of Nigeria’s electrification drive. to generate 12,522 MW of electric power from
As things stand, the REA has helped pro- its existing sources, but only dispatches around
vide off-grid reliable, clean electricity supply to 4,000 MW per day.
705,000 households, as well as thousands of busi- The lack of reliable power is a significant
nesses and medical facilities. constraint for citizens and businesses, resulting
According to NEP programme lead Anita in annual economic losses estimated at $26.2bn
Otubu, the project has been successful in (NGN10.1 trillion) in 2021, equivalent to about
helping to provide electricity to unserved and 2% of GDP.
Nigeria to explore using
nuclear energy, Buhari says
NIGERIA NIGERIA will explore nuclear energy to gener- Buhari said.
ate electricity, President Mohammadu Buhari “The possibility of nuclear power is now pro-
has said. viding African countries with a better alternative
Speaking at the International Ministerial for energy generation.”
Conference on Nuclear Power in the 21st Cen- He also noted that two potential sites for
tury, held in Washington DC, he noted that the Nigeria’s nuclear power plant have been iden-
country’s federal government had tasked the tified, and revealed that Abuja is “currently
Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission with devel- engaged in discussions with some countries”
oping the framework and technical pathway for over partnerships.
generating electricity. This summer, authorities in Africa’s largest
Buhari also noted that Abuja had established economy also announced plans to integrate
the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority, for solar into their energy mix as poor maintenance
the protection of humans and the environment. and insufficient investment in the transmission
‘‘Several countries in Africa have genuine network have resulted in only about a third of
aspirations for industrialization and growth, Nigeria’s installed capacity being dispatched by
but the lack of reliable and sustainable base- the grid daily.
load energy constitutes a serious impediment,”
P16 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 45 09•November•2022
