No fewer than 17.5 million poor Nigerians are expected to benefit from the World Bank Distributed Access through Renewable Energy, Scale-up project, DARES.
The programme is funded by an International Development Association credit of $750m.
The IDA is the World Bank’s fund established in 1960. It provides grants and low to zero-interest loans for projects and programs that boost economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve poor people’s lives.
The project, which will leverage over $1 bn of private capital and significant parallel financing from development partners, including $100 million from the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet and $200 million from Japan International Cooperation Agency.
The World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri, in a statement said that the funds are for expanding clean energy-based access in Nigeria to build standalone solar and mini-grids.
Chaudhuri said, “We are committed to expanding clean energy-based access in Nigeria, with the $750 m Nigeria DARES project being the largest ever single distributed energy project of the World Bank globally.
“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.”
Other development partners collaborating on the program include the United States Agency for International Development, the German Development Agency, SEforAll, and the African Development Bank.
The World Bank also noted that the DARES project will use innovative financing solutions to scale up private sector-led clean electricity provision in Nigeria.
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.
To further address the access gap, DARES is expected to build on the achievements of the World Bank-financed Nigeria Electrification Project, which has supported the establishment of 125 mini-grids and the sale of over a million Solar Home Systems, through which more than 5.5 million Nigerians have gained access to electricity.
The Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, in his reaction, noted, “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.
