VP’s Remarks At The Inaugural Nigerian Renewable Energy Roundtable

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AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF. YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, GCON, ACTING PRESIDENT, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA,  AT THE INAUGURAL NIGERIAN RENEWABLE ENERGY ROUNDTABLE AT THE STATE HOUSE BANQUET HALL ON JUNE 20, 2017  

PROTOCOL

Many of us may never have heard of Wuna. I hadn’t either until about two years ago. It is a village in the Gwagwalada Local Government Area of Abuja, lying between Abuja and Nasarawa State. It is an agrarian community.

It is not on the national grid, and had no other source of light. To charge their phones, an entrepreneur with a small generator runs a service. You take your phone to his shop once a day or so, you pay a small fee for charging. Life in Wuna essentially shuts down at about 7pm until daylight.

We decided working with the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) to provide a sustainable renewal energy solution using solar.

We engaged a company called Azuri which had done similar work in East Africa and asked Azuri to provide an end to end solution, including a pay-as-you-go system; so, it was not a free service.

I was in Wuna to see it for myself. For the first time since that village was founded, the village now has running water, solar powered. The school has power and the school hall is now used as a community hall in the evenings. Each home has 4 points of light and children can now stay up and do some studying at night.

Many of Wuna’s women can now process their millet and yams at night. New jobs have been created, solar installers, those who do maintenance work, payment systems and so on.

Only one guy has lost his job in Wuna, the phone charger. Every household can now charge their phones.  But he now charges phones of residents of other villages.  We are doing 20,000 more homes in this first phase of this exercise and a Pay-as-you-go system to 20,000 households to provide access to lighting and electric power for small devices. The plan is to expand the Solar Home System program to 1 million households, creating a few more million jobs.

The Federal government through the Rural Electrification Agency is developing an energy database that will show community locations and energy demand profiles, which in turn saves Solar Home System / Solar Mini grid providers, time and money because we have already identified the communities beforehand.

We are also championing the use of mobile money for solar home system payments.

The Wuna home solar project is an example of how we can creatively and aggressively provide power to our people by this pragmatic approach to our energy mix.

We are convinced that renewable energy probably offers us the most sustainable means of increasing energy access to those who have no electricity and have no immediate hope of being connected to the National grid.

Consequently, by a series of policy initiatives including our Vision 30 30 30, generation of 30GW of electricity by 2030,  30% of which is to be renewable energy, the Sustainable Energy for All ( SE4ALL) Action Agenda, and the National Renewable Energy Action Plan, we  seek to encourage and incentivize  private sector investments in on-grid and off-grid renewable energy solutions.

Some of these investments include the signing of Power Purchase Agreements with fourteen Solar PV developers, one of which plans to develop a total capacity of 1,125 Megawatts of solar energy to be transmitted to the National grid.

Barely six weeks ago, the board of the Rural Electrification Agency was constituted.  In addition to working on the completion of its ongoing grid extension projects, the Agency has positioned itself to focus on using renewable technology as a means to fulfill its mandate and is currently embarking on some landmark projects and initiatives in the renewables space. Such projects include, but are not limited to the captive off-grid “Energizing Education” programme, which seeks to provide uninterrupted power supply to Federal Universities and they are starting with nine Federal Universities, and projects which support the development of small hydro, solar mini grids, solar home systems, wind farms, notably the 10MW Katsina Wind Farm.

I will not repeat the several other projects mentioned by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Power.

Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has also published the mini-grid regulations which provide that power generated for a community below 100 kilo watt only requires registering with NERC, while projects between 100 kilo watt – 1 Mega Watt will require a permit.

The government is also developing an online portal for the solar mini-grid application process. We also continue to implement critical elements of our Policy that will promote private sector investments in renewable energy such as:

1. Power Production Tax Credits (PTC); I hope that some of these would appeal to the private sector especially about financing; to electricity generation companies, which is aimed at incentivizing the adoption of renewable energy.
2. Feed-in tariffs (FIT), which typically incentivize electricity producers by offering more favourable pricing for electricity produced through renewables.

iii. Public Benefits Fund (PBF), which requires that a certain percentage of the tariff is dedicated to supporting renewable energy generation projects on and off the grid.

1. Provision of capital grants, tax holidays and exemptions and other incentives for renewable energy projects.
2. In March we introduced a Green Bond to our menu of capital market options for mobilization of resources. I was in the Lagos stock exchange to flag off the programme. The uniqueness of the Green Bond is that its proceeds will be applied to climate and environment-friendly or green projects. Renewable energy will, of course, benefit tremendously.

Going forward, working with the private sector, we also need to create the framework for real-world business cases by developing standardised (and certified) technology packages, standardised contracts and a toolkit for energy cooperatives (with technical, institutional, financing and legal elements).

We also need to explore the opportunities for revolving funds for solar PV/wind projects as well as opportunities for other investment remuneration mechanisms.

It is also very important that we break the deadlock of electricity market structures by exploring the options to transform the “competition for markets” approach, continue to embark on a broader restructuring of the electricity sector and strive to achieve a more systematic development of the power market design, especially for renewable energy.

To do that, we need a framework that brings together all stakeholders towards ensuring that renewable energy becomes an engine of growth for Nigeria’s economy.

I already mentioned several of the plans; the latest is our attempt to break the gridlock in the liquidity of the electricity value chain and so our payment assurance system of over N701 billion has been approved by the Federal Executive Council and the first payment has been made and we hope that this will free up that value chain which has created several problems of its own and we are also looking at several platforms.

As a multi-stakeholder platform, the Nigerian Renewable Energy Roundtable, therefore, has its work cut out for it. It is to champion this new vision for renewable energy and ensure that we can translate theory to praxis for the greater good of the people of Nigeria.

I must commend the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology under the dynamic leadership of   Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, the Hon Minister of Science and Technology for convening this important meeting, and the Co-conveners, the Nigerian Economic Summit Group who have stood the test of time as committed and worthy partners with the government on several economic development initiatives. I must also greatly appreciate the support of the Heinrich Boll Foundation Nigeria for the entire event.

It is now my honour and privilege to inaugurate the Nigerian Renewable Energy Roundtable and may God continue to bless Nigeria.

Thank You