Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, first African-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has told U.S and African government officials that the Nigeria government has “approved the plan earlier this year and adopted it as a national policy…. we intend to completely eliminate the use of petrol/diesel generators by 2060 and therefore need to deploy renewables, particularly solar, at an unprecedented scale. For instance, the Energy Transition Plan requires that 5.3 GW of Solar be deployed annually until 2060 to achieve our targets.”
Buhari added that “as part of the National Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Policy, we set the vision 30:30:30 which aims at achieving 30GW of electricity by 2030 with renewable energy contributing 30 per cent of the energy mix. Last year, Nigeria became the first African country to develop a detailed Energy Transition Plan to tackle both energy poverty and climate change, and deliver SDG7 by 2030 and net-zero by 2060.” He stated that Nigeria’s government “aggressive power sector reforms have resulted in cost-reflective tariffs in the power sector for the first time since privatization. Under the Nigeria Electrification Project, over 4 million people have been impacted through solar mini-grids and solar stand-alone systems. With respect to hydro, the Zungeru hydropower project is nearing completion and will add 700MW in capacity to the grid.”
He said “our analysis shows that delivering the Energy Transition Plan requires $1.9 trillion in spending up to 2060, including $410 billion above business-as-usual spending. This additional financing requirement translates to a $10 billion investment needed per annum. Between 2000 and 2020, just $3 billion per year was invested in renewable energy in the whole of Africa. Consequently, the $10 billion per year target of our Energy Transition Plan represents a significant scaling of current investment flows and we need support from the U.S. to mobilize the needed resources. It is important to note that for African countries, the cost of finance and perceived investment risk remains significantly higher than for developed economies despite vast improvements in stability and governance. For our clean energy market to scale, Nigeria and more broadly Africa needs concessional, low-interest capital-led investments.”
Buhari, a retired army General, whose tenure of two terms (8 years) will end in May 2023 appealed that “Nigeria too seeks support from the US to be included in the G7’s Climate Partnerships List for the co-creation of a Just Energy Transition Partnership.”
USAfrica and USAfricaonline.com note that Buhari who has faced local and international criticisms for ineffective management of Nigeria’s economy and infrastructure is also getting very low grade on the widespread insecurity and violence in most parts of Nigeria. By Chido Nwangwu, Founder & Publisher of USAfrica. Follow him on Twitter @Chido247
USAfrica: Google’s Africa Cloud and cattle grazing routes. By Chido Nwangwu
