Moses Uwagbale
The Sustainable Use of Natural Resources and Energy Finance (SUNREF), an international funding facility, has urged manufacturers to take advantage of its facility and technical assistance for projects development.
The funding facility comprises 70 million dollars low-cost debt financing and 11 million dollars grant facility.
Mr Mansur Ahmed, the President, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) in a communique to newsmen on Thursday said the SUNREF facility came at the right time when manufacturers needed more power to drive its operations.
“We are excited about it as potential beneficiaries and we hope that both our members and non-members will take full advantage of this opportunity,” he said.
The Chief Executive Officer of All-On, Dr Wiebe Boer highlighted the huge market potential in the Renewable Energy and Energy sectors in Nigeria.
According to Boer, the size of the energy gap in Nigeria is between 30GW and 175GW and will cost between 40 billion dollars to 200 billion dollars to address.
“Nigerians spend 15 to 20 dollars billion annually on power, which is 10 times the grid.
“This is also a market opportunity for providers of constant, reliable electricity such as mini-grids which are a potentially 10 billion dollars market.
“This will provide a starting point for those businesses that are interested in finding solutions and want to take advantage of the concessionary lending and technical assistance that the SUNREF Nigeria programme has to offer but they are not sure where to begin,” he said.
Mr Javier Betancourt, Team Lead, SUNREF Nigeria said the facility was aimed at attracting investment into Nigeria’s renewable energy and energy efficiency sector.
He said that the 70 million dollars credit facility was funded by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and the European Union Infrastructure Trust Fund (EU-ITF) was launched in July 2020 for the development of green projects in Nigeria.
Betancourt said SUNREF would also provide grants for 10 per cent of the loan amount and technical assistance to support renewable energy and energy projects.
“The SUNREF Nigeria programme seeks to improve access to energy through improved access to affordable finance for renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency initiatives that will improve lives,
increase economic opportunities and support various sectors such as industry and agriculture.
“The SUNREF initiative has been deployed in over 30 countries and successfully supported over 42 projects in partnership with about 70 banks to the tune of about 2.5 billion euros from AFD, of which 1.2 billion euros has been paid,” he said.
Betancourt said the goals of the programme included targeting entrepreneurs that the AFD could not directly finance such as Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SME) and individuals, improving energy security and developing a functioning sustainable green market.
Others are engaging financial intermediaries as channels for disseminating these types
of projects through reliable local counterparts with technical skills, disseminate technical know-how and good practices through the technical assistance and reducing dependency on natural resources and energy supplies.
The communique was issued after investors webinar conference was held on Wednesday with SUNREF Nigeria and the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency.
It said SUNREF would work in partnership with Access Bank and the United Bank for Africa to support the development of energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.
The conference was hosted in partnership the Nigerian Energy Support Programme (NESP) and implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and off-grid renewable energy investor, All-On.
