The federal government on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a Chinese company, Mutual Commitment Company Limited on renewable energy.

This is contained in a statement by the Special Adviser on Strategic Communication and Media Relations, Bolaji Tunji, to the Minister of Power in Abuja.

The MoU was facilitated and signed in Beijing at the African-China Co-operation Summit by the Rural Electrification Agency, an agency of the Ministry of Power.

The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu and the Managing Director of REA, Abba Aliyu, were present at the ceremony.

Speaking at the event, Mr Adelabu said that the MoU signing were important and would go down as a memorable day for Nigeria.

He congratulated the REA and the National Power Training Institute of Nigeria for the achievement.

He said, “The MoU will go a long way towards achieving Nigeria’s vision for the renewable energy subsector of the electricity sector value chain. I know Nigeria and China have lots of things in common, one of which is the high population of both countries. And countries with high populations have so much pressure. The first pressure is that of energy access, and the second is job creation. So when you take steps to achieve both, it is a thing of joy.

”I am particularly happy that this is happening during the tenure of President Bola Tinubu, as it is in line with achieving the Renewed Hope Agenda of the administration for the country.’’

The minister reiterated that Mr Tinubu had prioritised the power sector as the driver of other critical sectors of the economy and given support to ensure that he delivered on his electoral promises.

He noted that energy access and expansion were the government’s major priorities because nothing could be achieved without a strong, stable, functional and reliable electricity sector.

He stated, “We have relied so much on centralisation of our power sector for so long that it is not taking us anywhere, as almost 40 per cent of Nigeria’s population lacks access to energy with its attendant consequences. So moving away from centralisation, we have decided to adopt the distributed power model to ensure that every Nigerian has access to energy.

“A lot of our population resides in the rural areas; a lot of our institutions—educational and tertiary health institutions—are isolated, and they are still facing epileptic power supply.’’

Mr Adelabu said that the federal government also found out that the adoption of distributed energy model would expand the energy net for Nigeria’s rural dwellers, the rural businesses, universities and tertiary health institutions.

He said that it was the reason the focus was now on renewable energy, which is believed to be scalable and could exist in isolation of the national grid currently facing pressure.

According to him, as Nigeria continues to expand energy access, the country also wants to achieve a transition to cleaner sources of energy that are sustainable and environment-friendly.

He stated, “Which is why we have both a long-term and medium-term target to achieve net zero carbon emissions by year 2060 and also to enable us to achieve 30 per cent of our energy generation coming from renewable energy by year 2030. So renewable energy is currently a major focus for us in the power sector.’’

He added that the two MoUs would achieve the vision for the renewable energy sub-segment of the power sector.

He noted, “A step like today’s will enable us to move up on our level of electrification. This will consequently lead to growth in our gross domestic product because of the economic activities that will be created. This will also save us foreign exchange expenditure on importation and create jobs for our people if we assemble these things locally.’’

Speaking earlier, the managing director of REA reiterated the importance of the ceremony as it was capable of delivering on the presidential mandate of building local capacity and creating more job opportunities.

Mr Aliyu said that the REA would track the MoUs and ensure the delivery of the commitment within the tenure of the present administration.

”We will also track the economic factor that this initiative will drive, the level of GDP contribution, the employment opportunities provided, and the socio-economic activities that will crystallise,” he said.

Mr Aliyu also said that the MCC was presently engaged in Nigeria with the construction of 12 MW and 3 MW power plants in Maiduguri and Kaduna, respectively.

In the same vein, the vice chairman of MCC, Yan Zhezhu, expressed appreciation for the power minister’s commitment to Nigeria’s energy growth.

”We are not new to Nigeria, having started in Oyo State a long time ago. Presently, we have ongoing projects in Maiduguri and Kaduna, and we appreciate the cooperation we have so far received. Our projects have seen us working with states and the federal government in Nigeria, and we are committed to doing more,” he said.

(NAN)