By Anthony Isaac
The Federal Government and electricity generation companies (GenCos) have disagreed sharply over the feasibility of achieving 30,000 Megawatts of power by the year 2030 with renewable energy sources accounting for 30 percent of total.
Acting Director, Renewable and Rural Power Access, in the Federal Ministry of Power, Engr. Faruk Yusuf Yabo, who revealed the plan at a public presentation of Simplified Guides to Nigeria’s Energy Access Policies in Abuja by Clean Tech Incubation and Acceleration Foundation, insisted that the vision was achievable.
But the Executive Secretary, Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC), Dr. Joy Ogaji said focus should be on how to deploy the available 13,000MW capacity.
Yabo who spoke during a panel session at the event in Abuja on Thursday said government policies on mini-grid and renewable energy sources have led to substantial investments in the sector.
“We have had N1.7 billion of private investments into the mini-grid space. It may look small but it has potentials for expansion. At the same time, the policy has attracted donor funding for the off-grid to the tune N1.9 billion”, he explained.
He continued: “Few years back we did not have any space where people can see the intentions of government in terms of growth but courtesy these policies we have a Vision 30:30:30, which is a vision to have 30,000MW by 2030 with 30 percent from renewable”.
But Dr. Ogaji who was on the same panel disagreed, alluding that the target was misplaced and unachievable.
“Who are we fooling”, she asked, “We have over 13,000MW on-grid installed capacity and out of that on the average from 2013 to end of 2019, we have utilized 3,500MW.
“It is impossible for me (GenCos) to add renewable to what is already sitting and building up in my books as debts. No business would do that”.
She pointed out that in “any market, capacity utilisation is a measure to check efficiency in production”, arguing that “if my capacity has not been utilised, there is no incentives for me to increase.
“However, the power generating plants all have expansion capacity”, she added.
Engr. Yabo and Dr. Ogaji also sparred over payment of subsidies in the power sector.
While Yabo said government has continued to support the power sector, especially the GenCos with interventions, Ogaji said those interventions were not subsidies but payments for debts owed the generation companies by the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Company (NBET).
Speaking earlier, the CEO of Clean Technology Hub, Ifeoma Malo explained that the simplified Guides to Nigeria’s Energy Access Policies will help investors, policy makers and communities’ benefits from the policies.
She said the guides summarized almost 50,000 pages of documents into 1,500 pages with focus on the policies’ highlights, key positions and financial incentives which can help people make credible decisions around renewable energy and energy efficiency
Speaking on the target by government to have 10,000 mini-grids by 2022, she said there has been a huge improvement in the mini-grid subsector in past few year, stressing that “before 2017/2016, the mini-grid sector was struggling, but since that target was put in place, what that did was catalyse a lot of financiers.
“We have seen a lot of foreign companies and more local mini-grid companies come into the sector”, she added.
