The Minister of Environment and United Nations Deputy Secretary General-designate, Amina Mohammed has said Nigeria will implement solar power projects that are tied to her overall economic programme.
Mohammed said in an interview with Arise Television Network in Abuja, that the country will run with the Paris Agreement to sign and execute economically viable solar power projects, indicating that it was moving away from ‘charitable’ solar power projects which are often badly procured and with little values eventually.
The minister also noted that a larger percentage of the country’s first ever sovereign green bond expected to come up within the first quarter of 2017, will be disbursed on competitively procured solar power projects in Nigerian universities.
According to her, policies and frameworks to enable the country segue into competitive off grid solar power systems would be implemented by it.
“When you look at Nigeria and you see how much infrastructure that has to be in place for on grid gas powered electricity, it is going to take some time and you see how that has been damaged with all the efforts of the minister of power, we still are challenged,” Mohammed said in the interview.
She further stated: “Now, going off grid with solar, that is possible and there is a plan for that – it is part of our energy mix. What does environment do about this? We leverage the Paris Agreement which looks at very many compacts that are coming together to support that. We see how Morocco has been able to do this and indigenously provide the expertise and go to scale, and that’s what we want to see here.
“But we want to see it joined up with the economic programme so that you are not just putting solar power for the sake of it, you are reducing and getting the tariff framework ready, the policies responsive.”
“We are issuing the first sovereign green bond and one of the major expenditures in the N20 billion is on solar power. It is working through the ministry of power, looking at off grid for some universities,” the minister explained.
