- UEF will provide performance-based grants to several solar energy providers in Nigeria.
- They will connect at least 3,500 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to clean energy generation systems.
The Universal Energy Facility (UEF), a financial mechanism run by the global organization Sustainable Energy for Everyone, will provide performance-based awards to solar energy enterprises (SE4All). The grants will be given out as part of the Stand-alone Solar for Productive Usage (SSPU) program that the UEF in Nigeria launched.
Hence, the businesses chosen through a request for expressions of interest in August 2022, whose identities were kept secret, will have to start carrying out the suggested initiatives. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), markets, retail malls, cold storage facilities, clinics, schools, and other productive uses of energy—that is, uses that support a community’s infrastructure and economic activity—are the main targets of the initiatives.
According to SE4All, these projects will be implemented in most Nigerian states over the next 12 months and are expected to result in the productive use of solar energy in at least 3,500 structures in the West African country. “With this programme in Nigeria, the UEF will demonstrate the enabling power that sustainable energy can have on local economic development and climate action,” says Damilola Ogunbiyi, SE4All’s Executive Director and Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Sustainable Energy.
The use of diesel generators, which are typically used as a backup when the energy system fails, by small enterprises and retail facilities will be reduced. The use of solar energy systems is therefore expected to reduce emissions by 5,400 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year.
In addition to improving business access to power, the UEF’s SSPU initiative has also been created to improve home access. As a result, the UEF has started implementing the first call for projects window for the SSPU program. Businesses who use the “lease to own” or “energy as a service” business models benefit from the project.