Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (MD/CEO) of Rural Electrification Agency (REA), Abba Aliyu, has said that about 80 million Nigerians have access to electricity, a situation that calls for more penetration of power to the rural areas.

Speaking when a delegation of Zanzibar Utilities Regulatory Authority (ZURA) paid him a visit for an exchange of knowledge on system dispatch and grid stability, Aliyu, said, however, that Nigeria is not doing badly considering its large population.

Highlighting the importance of electricity to nation’s development, Aliyu stated that electrification is everything.

“Electricity will determine how health services will be done, how education will be done, how agriculture will be done, how everything is going to be. And that is why we call it the electrification of everything,” he said.

REA stated that there’s a high rate of electricity demands across the world, saying that there are three issues that necessitate the current high demand for electricity which include the electrification of everything, population growth, AI and data centres.

“These three reasons are changing the demand for electricity. And the entire world—whether we are ready in Africa or we are not, electricity is going to change every single thing that we are going to do,” he emphasised.

According to Aliyu, as the world continues to use more and more AI, the need for electricity will continue to be increased.

“And already European Union (EU) permitted $150 billion for net zero manufacturing, which is just electricity, renewable, and infrastructure. China, who are the master of everything, are holding the biggest generation capacity—the three-gauge dam. The three-gauge dam is the single biggest generation infrastructure in the world, which National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said when they developed the infrastructure, it will reduce the earth’s rotation by about 0.005 per cent. The three-gauge dam generation capacity is 26 megawatts of infrastructure,” he said.

In her remarks, Director, Stakeholders Management, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Dr Maryam Yaya Abubakar, assured that Nigeria

Can build a mini-grid of up to 10 megawatts interconnected and five megawatts isolated.

“So this is what these Renewable Energy Service Companies (RESCOs) are doing.

We are no more contractors. But when we created that ecosystem and opportunity, they started transitioning from contractors to developers.

“And now that we have 1,350 mini-grids; we told them to move from developers to a utility-scale managed company. That is why we created the RESCO concept. And now we have over 150 RESCOs.

“Some of Nigeria’s RESCOs are not only providing services in Nigeria. They are providing in other African countries.

We are also very keen to know that we need talent in the global space. We are very bullish about it.

“We are about to inject 3.7 gigawatts of manufacturing capacity in Nigeria. Already, many of Nigeria’s photovoltaic (PV) panels in Lagos have been exported to Ghana. We want to reduce the importation of PV panels from China.

“We are asking Chinese companies to come to Nigeria and establish their factories. As you can see, these are all the factories that are to be established in the country. By the end of next year, we will have 3.7 gigawatt manufacturing capacity. This is one of the big achievements that we have recorded,” she said. (The Sun)

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