Two firms have signed an agreement to provide power to 25
communities across Nigeria using solar energy. The communities are in Bayelsa,
Ondo, Ogun and Osun states.
Premium Times reports that a Nigerian firm, Community Energy
Social Enterprises Limited, CESEL, and its American counterpart, Renewvia
Energy Corporation, signed a $767,512 agreement to provide solar energy for the
communities on ‘pay-as- you-go’ basis.
The CESEL Managing Director, Patrick Tolani, signed the
agreement on behalf of his company while Clay Taber, Managing Director of
Renewvia, signed for his firm, at the Power Africa office in Abuja.
The MoU signing was witnessed by Power Africa Coordinator,
Andrew Herscowitz, and the United States Agency for International Development
mission director in Nigeria, Michael Harvey.
Mr Tolani said the benefitting communities were those that
had no access to electricity for more than 10 years, including Brass in Bayelsa
and Magboro in Ogun state.
Others, he said, include Ilajera and Gbokoda in Ondo state and
a community which was completely cut off the grid because of isolation in Osun
state. Mr Taber in his remarks said Renewvia would install and operate
micro-grid systems with solar photo-voltaic generation capacity and battery
storage in the 25 benefiting communities.
According to him, the
design of the micro-grids for the project will include PV panels, string
inverters, aluminium racking and energy storage backup power.
He said: “Renewvia and CESEL would sell micro-grid customers
electricity by Kilowatts through a ‘pay as you go’ structure.
“The competitiveness of the system helps to ensure payment,
as the project would provide consistent and reliable power at a less expensive
price than current rural power generation by diesel.”
He added that Renewvia and CESEL also planned to facilitate
the transaction through mobile payments, noting that the project would employ
local and remote resources to support the needs of the power plant for each
micro-grid.
The project was
supported by Power Africa, a U.S. energy project initiated in 2013 to assist
African countries in accessing energy.
It is expected that
the project would provide up to 10 megawatts and connect over 10, 000
households, according to a study by Renewvia.
The project is also expected to be completed in one year.
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