The Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND) has facilitated the provision and installation of six energy cabins in six coastal communities in Ondo and Delta states.
Through its Access to Energy programme, PIND worked with private clean energy providers and community associations to facilitate 20kW and 21.06kW energy cabins that would provide reliable electricity to businesses and households in the communities.
PIND Access to Energy Manager, Teslim Giwa, said the programme began at the end of the five-year Appropriate Technology Enabled Development (ATED) program.
According to Giwa, “Many of the communities have never experienced grid connection and a lot of them are located in the periphery of the coastline. The people have lived in the communities for years without electricity.”
Over 85 million Nigerians do not have access to grid electricity, according to the World Bank, representing 43 per cent of the country’s population and making Nigeria the country with the largest energy access deficit in the world.
The World Bank revealed that the lack of electricity supply has significantly affected citizens and businesses, resulting in annual economic losses estimated at $26.2 billion (N10.1 trillion), which is equivalent to about two per cent of GDP.
He said he is convinced that communities will adopt the new solar system to generate electricity in their communities within the Niger Delta.
Several businesses such as restaurants, smoking kitchens, hair salons, retail shops, tailoring shops, butchers, micro hotels, fishing gear shops, boat spare part retailers, pharmacy shops, local booking agencies, and mobile money booths are some of the businesses that have benefited from the energy cabins.
The Deputy Executive Director of PIND, Tunji Idowu said the energy cabins would enable businesses to earn more income, adding that the communities can retail the solar energy at a competitive rate to a diversity of small and micro-enterprises within those rural areas.
“As access to energy is arguably the holy grail of development, the installations allow a diverse group of beneficiaries in the communities to address basic energy needs and productive uses of energy at both household and rural enterprise levels. These will afford such typically agrarian and fishing communities to experience direct value addition to fish and agricultural produce while newer service industries are likely to emerge.
Pa Malo Felix, the Olaja of Ogheye, one of the communities that benefitted was grateful for the installation of the solar energy cabin in his community.
“We love it and we are enjoying it,” he said. “Before the solar came, we had generators in this community, but due to the condition of fuel, we could not power the generators. Solar is with us and what we do is to recharge the solar. We love the solar here a lot, and we would want the solar to stay. So, I thank the people that have brought this solar to the community.”
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