The Federal Ministry of Education in Nigeria has issued a Request for Qualification (RfQ) for 15 MW ground-mounted solar project with a 5 MW battery energy storage system at the University of Benin (UNIBEN).

The university, which is in Benin city, is located in Nigeria’s Edo State.

The brief scope of work includes the design, finance, building, operating, and transferring of the solar projects with energy storage system. The projects will be developed on Public-Private- Partnership (PPP) mode.

The objective of the project is to provide reliable and cost-effective electricity to support learning, training, research and development in the university.

Recently, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) assessed the energy statistics across 15 West African countries, namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo and published  its report “Planning and prospects for renewable power: West Africa”. The report projected that solar PV installation in the Regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region ranges from 8 GW to over 20 GW by 2030.

Last year in May, the African Development Bank (AfDB) had approved a $1.5-million grant from the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) to support the Nigerian government’s implementation of Phase 1 of the Jigawa 1 GW Independent Power Producer (IPP) Solar Procurement Program.

Africa has lately become the hotbed of renewable energy investments, leading to a spur in solar installations.

In December 2018, the United Kingdom committed an additional funding of £100 million for the Renewable Energy Performance Platform (REPP) which aims to give a major boost to Sub-Saharan Africa’s small to medium-scale renewable energy sector.

In November 2018, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a United States Government agency, provided 600 million shillings (~$5.86 million) to CrossBoundary Energy, a Nairobi-based company which funds commercial and industrial solar in East Africa.

In March 2018, Mercom reported on the news of India pledging $1.4 billion to developing nations and west African countries such at a conference organized by the International Solar Alliance (ISA).

Image credit: Edirin247 [CC BY-SA 3.0], from Wikimedia Commons