The Rural Electrification Agency (REA) says starting in November, the Federal Government will kick-start a new rural electricity project bankrolled by the World Bank to provide electricity for 17.5 million Nigerians.
The Agency’s Managing Director, Abba Aliyu, who revealed this on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Thursday, also said his agency has plans to provide cheap energy alternatives to tertiary institutions using renewable energy sources.
He said the project, tagged the Distributed Renewable Energy Scaleup, has been designed to target the provision of electricity for up to 17.5 million Nigerians using renewable energy sources.
Aliyu said, “For example, there’s a new project that we are starting next month called the Distributed Renewable Energy Scaleup project which is a $750 million financed (project) by the World Bank. The target of that project is to electrify 17.5 million Nigerians and I must say that this is one of the most ambitious projects in the world based on my understanding.
“Apart from India which has moved many unelectrified people to have electricity access, there’s no other country that has an ambitious project like this so this is a project that we are starting.”
