Stories By Onu Okorie
The Nigeria’s installed local solar panel production capacity has surged from 120 megawatts to approximately 300MW, under the leadership of the Managing Director of
Rural Electrification Agency REA Dr. Abba Aliyu, with a further 3.7 gigawatts currently in the development pipeline.
The special assistant to the REA boss on media Mathew Ibiyemi who revealed this in Abuja further explained that the Nigerian-made panels are already crossing borders, with exports flowing from industrial corridors in Lagos to markets in Accra, Ghana, a remarkable reversal for a country that once depended almost entirely on imports.
Underpinning this manufacturing boom is a regulatory framework that experts say is among the most progressive on the continent. The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission’s Mini-Grid Regulations now permit interconnected mini-grids of up to 10MW, with clear rules governing how these systems interact with the national grid. The framework has drawn such international attention that countries including Mozambique, Benin Republic, Burkina Faso, and Niger are actively studying it for replication.
At the heart of the REA’s current push is the Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-Up programme — known as DARES, which has been recognized as the largest publicly funded renewable energy access initiative in the world. The $750 million programme is structured to attract an additional $1.1 billion in private investment through a results-based financing model that requires developers to deploy their own capital before unlocking any government incentives.
The targets are ambitious: clean electricity for over 17.5 million Nigerians, power for more than 2.5 million households, and the launch of 1,350 mini-grids, including 250 interconnected systems. As of today, over 1,000 mini-grids are already in development across the country, while 48 interconnected systems — set to inject 288MW of clean capacity are being deployed in partnership with 11 electricity distribution companies.
To further de-risk investment, the REA has forged financing partnerships with FCMB, Lotus Bank, and the International Finance Corporation IFC, building what officials describe as a self-sustaining, decentralized energy ecosystem.
The REA has also signed a $700,000 Memorandum of Understanding with the ECOWAS Commission to electrify healthcare centers and 15 public universities across the FCT, Niger, and Nasarawa states.