The federal government says it plans to provide energy access to 95 million Nigerians who are currently underserved through Distributed Energy Resources (DRE).

The minister of power, Adebayo Adelabu, said this in Abuja on Friday at the ministerial briefing on the performance of President Bola Tinubu’s administration in the last one year.

Mr Adelabu said that the federal government was committed to achieving its energy transition target of net zero carbon emissions by 2060.

“We believe that the fastest way of providing energy access to 95 million Nigerians that are currently underserved will be through Distributed Energy Resources (DRE).

“We have various mini and micro grids across the country. We have solar home systems provided for more than three million Nigerians and we are still distributing.”

The minister also disclosed that the federal government had concluded the 550 million dollars Nigeria Electrification Plan (NEP) which had bridged the energy access deficit by providing electricity to more than 1.1 million households.

“It has also provided electricity to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), educational and healthcare facilities in unserved and underserved rural communities.

“And due to the success of the NEP, the federal government got approval for an additional 750 million dollars facility from the World Bank to increase access to electricity for 2.5 million households.

“This is through deployment of solar home systems and mini grids to households, MSMEs, educational and health facilities throughout the country”, he said.

Mr Adelabu said that within the next two months, the ministry would inaugurate 35 Megawatts (MW) of solar projects developed to power some educational institutions.

He listed the institutions to include University of Abuja, Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) and Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta.

“Others are teaching hospitals, Federal Universities can be taken off the grid to ensure stable power supply.’’

The minister said that Nigerians were beginning to see some progress from the outcome of the reform process and the key achievements of the administration in the last one year.

“However, we will not relent until we have a resilient and efficient electricity sector that meets the needs of all Nigerians. And we call on the different stakeholders to play their parts”, he said.

(NAN)