- The minigrid solution will target households, businesses, schools and healthcare centres in rural communities.
- Nigeria has the lowest access to electricity globally, with about 92 million persons out of the country’s over 200 million population lacking access to power supply.
ENGIE Energy Access has announced plans to deploy renewable minigrid energy systems in Nigeria. According to the Energy Progress Report 2022, “Tracking Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)”, Nigeria has the lowest access to electricity globally, with about 92 million persons out of the country’s over 200 million population lacking access to power supply.
To bridge the energy supply gap in the country, ENGIE, one of the leading providers of solar home systems and mini-grid solutions in Nigeria, stated that it would target households, businesses, schools and healthcare centres in rural communities by providing them with access to renewable energy through constructing its mini-grids project in Niger state.
The Head, Mini-Grids, ENGIE Energy Access Nigeria, Onyinye Anene-Nzelu, made this known while speaking during a panel session at the second edition of the Solar Week Nigeria 2023 Conference & Awards recently held in Lagos, with the theme, ‘Partnering for success: Collaborating with communities and stakeholders in mini-grids project with energy storage in Nigeria.
According to her, strategic partnership with relevant stakeholders in the renewable energy ecosystem is essential in bridging Nigeria’s huge energy gap.
She said, “The importance of collaboration in the renewable energy space cannot be over-emphasised. With 92 million people with no access to electricity, especially in rural areas, shows that more needs to be done to increase investment in electric power infrastructure; more needs to be done to increase financing for private sector energy efficiency and renewable energy development to meet the energy demand of our growing population.
“From the beginning of the value chain is policy; we need to ensure that we get our policies right. We also need to ensure that our regulatory framework is well aligned with the right methodology to ensure that we can attract and sustain investments that will enable us to bridge the energy access gap across the country.”