By Chibisi Ohakah
Abuja
Federal government has presented a draft of its renewable energy and efficiency policy to stakeholders, a successful Implementation of which will see the addition of 2,483 megawatts (MW) of electricity to the national grid by 2015.
During a presentation of the draft policy session in Abuja, director of the electrical inspectorate services (EIS) of the ministry of power, Mr Abayomi Adebisi, said the draft I expected to be appraised by stakeholders before it will be escalated to the Federal Executive Council.
Apart from the 2,483MW target for 2015, there are broader goals: 8,188MW for 2020 and 23,134MW for 2030. Therefore, renewable sources will contribute about 1.3% of Nigeria’s energy mix by 2015, with further projections of 8% for 2020 and 16% for 2030.
He further explained that large and small hydro power plants would be contributing as much as 2,121MW and 140MW by 2015, while solar power projects will be adding 117MW. The policy has been developed with a grant and technical support from the German enterprise GIZ.
“We sourced for grants from GIZ, then we pooled over 30 documents from people who had once done something on renewable energy. We got a committee of experts to develop the policy, and the draft was approved by the ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREE) in May 2013,” Mr Adebisi said.
He, however, issued a disclaimer saying that the ministry’s effort were not conflicting with that of the Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN) which had started developing a National Energy Policy (NEP) document last year.
“We are not trying to be a rival with ECN since they are working on NEP, but we are trying to move the sector forward with the national renewable energy and energy efficiency policy.”
A number of incentives have been suggested in the draft and more should be underway as a call has been made from the Ministry of Power urging participating stakeholders to contribute viable ideas that will make the policy attractive to investors.
In its current form, the draft policy proposes a 5-year tax holiday to be granted to manufacturers of renewable energy equipment and accessories, while soft loans accompanied with low interest rates and two years free custom duties can be used to stimulate domestic investments in the sector.
