Following from its launch of the presidential initiative on solar homes systems at Wuna, a rural community on the outskirt of Abuja in January, Nigeria would in a matter of days extend the system to about 81 villages in 27 local governments situated within 9 northern states.
OGN reliably gathered that arrangement for the deployment of the systems in these villages had been concluded and would happen any time soon.
A couple of days ago, Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, disclosed at a function in the State House, Abuja, that the government has accepted to increase the number of the solar home systems to circa one million to be deployed to rural communities without electricity in the country. OGN sources however inferred that this was part of Osinbajo’s disclosure.
While details of the new launch has not been made public by the government, these sources however explained that the government has also kept faith with Azuri Technologies which was contracted for the Wuna pilot scheme.
In Wuna, Osinbajo stated that Nigeria will leverage on the falling costs of deploying solar PV to move a good number of her citizens away from depending on the national grid.
He explained then that the pay-as-you-go solar initiative was funded and implemented by the Niger Delta Power Holdings Plc (NDPHC) in partnership with Azuri Technologies.
He also boasted that most Nigerian homes and offices could soon quit from the national grid to rely on off grid electricity generation sources for their entire power needs, adding that the growing favourable economics of using renewable energy sources like solar photovoltaics (PV) to generate electricity means that Nigeria will now have to use off grid renewable energy solutions to close the wide deficit in stable electricity supply to its citizens, especially rural folks and homes.
Osinbajo also stated that while the national grid was just a single transmission system, every Nigerian cannot be connected to it, but can reliably get electricity from off grid sources.
“We think that as solar power becomes cheaper, and it is becoming cheaper practically day by day, we will be able to afford to do even more and deploying more across the country especially to places that are not served by the grid.
“There is absolutely no reason why our country that has possibly the best radiation anywhere in the world (should not embrace solar) – many parts of Nigeria especially in the northern parts, radiation is excellent, and so we are going to do our best to use solar power to the maximum especially wherever we can find the best radiation,” he stated then.
He noted then: “We expect that this will be replicated all over Nigeria, we are starting with 20,000 but I am sure we will ramp up very quickly. We have been talking to the private sector about involving themselves also on this project.”
