By Hosea parah, Abuja

The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), Tuesday, in Washington, United States, restated the determination of the Nigerian government towards achieving the vision of 30 gigawatts of energy by the year 2030.

According to a statement by the Special Assistant to Buhari, Garba Shehu, the President said this during the discussion panel on Just Energy Transition at the ongoing US-Africa Leaders Summit in the American city.

He used the opportunity to outline the comprehensive Energy Transition Plan unfolded by his administration in response to the issues associated with the climate change.

“As part of the National Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Policy, we set the vision 30:30:30 which aims at achieving 30GW of electricity by 2030 with renewable energy contributing 30% of the energy mix. Last year, Nigeria became the first African country to develop a detailed Energy Transition Plan to tackle both energy poverty and climate change, and deliver the Sustainable Development Goal 7 by 2030 and net-zero by 2060.

“Our Federal Executive Council approved the plan earlier this year and adopted it as a national policy. As part of the plan, we intend to completely eliminate the use of petrol/diesel generators by 2060 and therefore need to deploy renewables, particularly solar, at an unprecedented scale. For instance, the Energy Transition Plan requires that 5.3 GW of solar be deployed annually until 2060 to achieve our targets,” Buhari said.

The president stressed that the Nigerian government had embarked on several reforms, one of the best in Africa, on mini-grid regulations as well as the integration of renewable energy into the national grid. He disclosed some of the reforms which had positively impacted the energy sector in Nigeria.

“Our aggressive power sector reforms have resulted in cost-reflective tariffs in the power sector for the first time since privatisation. Under the Nigeria Electrification Project, over four million people have been impacted through solar mini-grids and solar stand-alone systems. With respect to hydro, the Zungeru hydropower project is nearing completion and will add 700MW in capacity to the grid,” the president added.

While also stressing the resources that the administration had committed towards the realisation of the vision, the Nigerian leader however called for “considerable financial and technical support” to achieve the goals.

“For instance, our analysis shows that delivering the Energy Transition Plan requires $1.9 trillion spending up to 2060, including $410 billion above business-as-usual spending. This additional financing requirement translates to a $10 billion investment needed per annum. Between 2000 and 2020, just $3 billion per year was invested in renewable energy in the whole of Africa.

“Consequently, the $10 billion per year target of our Energy Transition Plan represents a significant scaling of current investment flows and we need support from the US to mobilise the needed resources. It is important to note that for African countries, the cost of finance and perceived investment risk remains significantly higher than for developed economies despite vast improvements in stability and governance. For our clean energy market to scale, Nigeria and more broadly Africa needs concessional, low-interest capital-led investments.”