The World Bank has approved the sum of $750 million to boost renewable energy and to also expand access to clean energy for 17.5 million Nigerians.
The Nigeria Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) project, being financed by $750 million International Development Association (IDA) credit, would leverage over $1 billion of private capital and significant parallel financing from development partners.
The financing from development partners include $100 million from the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet and $200 million from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri said DARES project being the largest ever single distributed energy project of the World Bank globally.
He said: “It will benefit over 17.5 million unserved, underserved, rural, and remote Nigerians through the deployment of standalone solar and mini grids and replace more than 280,000 polluting and expensive petrol and diesel generator sets, an important step for Nigeria towards achieving its energy transition targets,”
“Through the DARES project, Nigeria will be able to provide up to 237,000 MSMEs with reliable and clean electricity for productive uses that will help improve their potential to generate income and create local jobs.”
Chaudhuri added that the DARES project will use innovative financing solutions to scale up private sector-led clean electricity provision in Nigeria.
According to him, As of 2021, over 85 million Nigerians lacked access to electricity; businesses and households with access to the national grid have faced unreliable and insufficient supply, a gap often filled with power from petrol and diesel-run generator sets that are costly and highly polluting to people and the environment.
Other development partners collaborating on the programme include the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the German Development Agency (GIZ), SEforAll, and the African Development Bank (AfDB).In a statement yesterday, the World Bank said the DARES project aims to provide over 17.5 million Nigerians with new or improved access to electricity through distributed renewable energy solutions.