(Ecofin Agency) - The Federal Government of Nigeria plans to provide renewable power supply to rural communities not connected to the national grid. In this framework, the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) is developing an energy database which would reveal community locations and energy demand profiles.

Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo (photo), who made this known last week, said: “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 programme to one million households, creating a few more million jobs. We are also championing the use of mobile money for solar home system payments.”

Osinbajo explained that the energy database will save solar home system providers time and money as the communities have been identified beforehand.

He noted that the government has realized that renewable energy offers the most sustainable means of boosting access to energy. “We want to embark on a broader restructuring of the electricity sector and strive to achieve a more systematic development of power market design especially for the renewable energy,” the Acting President stated adding that in order to achieve this “we need a framework that brings together all stakeholders towards ensuring that renewable energy becomes a real engine of growth for the Nigerian economy. We have mentioned several of the plans. The latest is to break the gridlock in the liquidity of the entire electricity value chain and so, our payment assurance system of over $2 billion has been approved by FEC and in fact, the first payment has been made and we are going to make up the second payment.”

Anita Fatunji