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The Bank of Industry and the United Nations Development Programme have signed a $2 million agreement to provide solar-powered electricity to off-grid rural communities across six states in Nigeria.

Under the agreement, which was signed in Abuja yesterday, BoI will contribute $1.4 million to the project, while the UNDP will provide the remaining $600,000 as part of the second phase of the BoI/UNDP Access to Renewable Energy Project.

“The blend of BoI’s contribution in the sum of $1.4 million as debt financing for the projects, with UNDP’s grant contribution of $600,000 will provide the much needed stimulus to scale up the projects in view of the attendant reduction in the cost of deployment and enhancement of its overall viability,” said Waheed Olagunju, BoI’s Acting Managing Director.

In the pilot phase of the project – which commenced in 2015 – low-cost, off-grid solar installations were constructed and commissioned in one community in each of the six geo-political zones in Nigeria. The beneficiary communities of the pilot phase were: Bisanti community in Katcha Local Government Area of Niger State; Idi-Ita/Onibambu communities in Ife North LGA of Osun State; Kolwa community, Kaltungo LGA of Gombe State; Onono community in Anambra West LGA of Anambra State; Obayantor 1 community in Edo State; and Charwa/Chakun communities in Makarfi LGA of Kaduna State.

Under the second phase of the project, Olagunju said the BoI and UNDP financing will be used to provide solar installations for more communities in the existing beneficiary states: Niger, Osun, Edo, Anambra, Kaduna, and Gombe.

Olagunju also said if the pilot project is scaled up with 10 micro-grid installations across the 774 local governments in Nigeria, about 300MW of electricity could be produced without problems such as sabotage or pipeline vandalism.

“We are all aware that power remains a major obstacle to growth in Nigeria, as inadequate and unreliable electricity undermines investment opportunity, economic growth, social and infrastructure developments,” he said.