The Nigerian government on Thursday commissioned a 300KWp Solar PV pilot project in Kainji, Niger State.
Bolaji Tunji, special adviser, strategic communication and media relations to the Minister of Power, disclosed this in a statement on Friday.
The commissioning of the project, according to the statement, is in furtherance of President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda to provide adequate, reliable and quality electricity to businesses and households in the country.
KWp stands for the kilowatt ‘peak’ power output of a system.
“In furtherance of President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda to provide adequate, reliable and quality electricity to businesses and households in the country, the Federal government on Thursday commissioned a 300KWp Solar PV pilot project in Kainji, Niger State,” Mr Tunji said.
While commissioning the project, the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, said the project will primarily increase power generation capacity and lower electricity costs while also fostering enhanced collaboration between the main concessionaire, Mainstream Energy Solution and its Chinese partner, HEDC, in the renewable energy field.
The statement noted that the power project comes with a 675KWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), which is an integral part of the extension of 1G3 and 1G4 under the rehabilitation of the 1G9 in Kainji HPP project.
Mr Adelabu said efforts were progressing in achieving President Tinubu’s turnaround agenda on the supply of reliable and quality power.
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He noted that the power ministry’s objective is to meet power demand by ensuring improved distribution and transmission infrastructure to minimize technical and commercial losses, closing the metering gap and resolving the liquidity, power theft and vandalism challenges.
He added that the destruction of some power towers around the country has been reported to the National Security Adviser (NSA) to strengthen security around the power infrastructure.
“It is of no use to expend so much energy in providing power facilities if the delivery channel is weak, that is why the ministry is concentrating on the improvement of the transmission and distribution capacity,” he said.
On power theft and destruction of power infrastructure, Mr Adelabu emphasized the need for Nigerians and the different communities where the facilities are located to protect them.
“What is the essence of government and private companies expending resources on these power facilities while some elements within the society will deliberately move to destroy the facilities which are national assets?
“What we witnessed towards the end of 2023 was disheartening. Some of the power towers were brought down with the loss of lives, in some cases, this is quite unfortunate. We should take it as a personal and collective responsibility to protect the infrastructure,” Mr Adelabu said.
He explained that plans are also underway to wield the big stick on power theft through adequate legislation to serve as a deterrent to others.
The minister revealed that efforts have begun to bridge metering gaps in the country.
“Presently, we have about 12 million electricity users, but only about five million are metered. As we are all aware, the president set up the presidential mass metering initiative of which I am the chairman, we are working assiduously on this initiative to bridge the metering gap,” he said.
Mr Adelabu gave the government’s assurance to continue to provide an enabling environment for the private sector to leverage on opportunities inherent in government policies, incentives and regulations for sustainable power supply for economic development and improvement of the standard of living of Nigerians, especially rural dwellers.
He added that the government had also come up with relevant policies and programmes to provide direction in ensuring power availability to the people.
Speaking earlier, Managing Director of Mainstream Energy Solution, Lamu Audu said the project is in line with the national renewable energy and energy efficiency policy of the federal government which sets out the blueprint for increasing the country’s renewable energy development by 2030.
He said the pilot project is the beginning of mainstream’s integration of variable renewable energy into its core business, noting that the plan is at an advanced stage to build 450MWp and 150MWp Solar PV at Kainji and Jebba Hydro Power Plants (HPPs).
Mr Audu called on the government to continue to provide the enabling environment that would attract more funding from private investors.
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