The Rural Electrification Agency (REA) has signed an agreement with Oando Clean Energy to build a 1.2 gigawatt solar power plant in the country.

Speaking during the signing ceremony in Abuja, the Managing Director of REA, Abubakar Abba Aliyu, said the project, which would be part of the $950m Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) project, is to stimulate local capacity for production of solar materials in the country.

Abbas stated that the project, which is funded by the World Bank and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), seeks to bring electricity to over 17 million Nigerians.

He said the project would include construction of an off-grid power plant, mesh electricity generation, interconnected power grid and solar manufacturing power plant.

“The way we want to scale up the intervention, that’s the same way we want to scale up our localisation drive in solar materials. And to that end, one of the MOUs we are going to sign today is the 1.2 gigawatt PV panels assembly plant here in Nigeria.

“And in a few weeks, we are going to sign a joint development agreement with Infracorp and the Ministry of Finance Incorporated for another 1 gigawatt PV panels assembly plant here in Nigeria in collaboration with REA.

“This is something that we are doing to make sure that we domesticate localisation and manufacturing in-country. And it is on record also, we have catalysed the emergence of a lithium battery assembly plant in Lagos’ trade free zone with a company called Greenbox. This company will start with assembly and will expand to total manufacturing leveraging on the abundance of lithium resources in-country.”

He added that to ensure the sustainability of all its interventions in renewable electrification, it has secured the approval for the establishment of a Renewable Asset Management Company to warehouse the over $500 million worth of renewable assets in the country.

The President/CEO of Oando Clean Energy, Ademola Ogunbanjo, said the company would roll out the first 600 megawatt line next year to supply the local market and Africa.

“It will also be the first, on the African continent, solar modular assembly plant with a recycling line. So we’re building a solar modular assembly plant in Nigeria that will not only roll out solar panels, but also be able to take solar panels that are no longer working, maybe due to age or dysfunction, and recycle them into raw materials that we can then send back to those who use them for different purposes.”