Nigeria will serve as a pilot country for the implementation of a new mechanism to facilitate the deployment of renewable energy in Africa. It is the Demand Aggregation for Renewable Technology (DART) program recently launched by All On, an impact investment company funded by Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell, and Odyssey Energy Solutions, a clean energy investment and project management platform.
The new facility is also supported by the Global Energy for People and Planet Alliance (GEAPP), an initiative launched at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, with the goal of mobilizing $100 million in public and private capital for renewable energy in developing countries, particularly in Africa. The Rockefeller Foundation is also supporting the new initiative.
Reducing logistics costs
The DART program will allow for the pooling of orders from solar energy companies for the group purchase of equipment dedicated to the production of this clean energy. Through this initiative, the four partners aim to reduce the costs of off-grid solar systems that facilitate rural electrification in Nigeria. According to the Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) 2020 report, aggregated procurement and logistics for solar equipment can significantly reduce costs and unlock bottlenecks in the supply chain.
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The program will be implemented in Nigeria before expanding to other African countries. DART is supported by a $10 million financing facility. Odyssey Energy Solutions has committed to implementing this participatory project by providing aggregated procurement services in five pilot countries in Africa, starting with Nigeria. The developer will manage the global platform to standardize equipment, process orders from solar companies, manage supplier relationships, and connect developers with financing partners.
5 million facility for Nigeria
For its part, All On plans to provide loans to solar providers recognized by Nigeria’s Rural Electrification Agency (REA) and participating in the Nigeria Rural Electrification Project (NEP), a federal government initiative co-financed by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the World Bank. The investment firm All On, which is very active in Nigeria, will partner with the new GEAPP alliance to provide $5 million in matching investments for Nigeria.
For the record, the GEAPP alliance is supported by the World Bank Group, the AfDB, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the U.S. Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and the British government’s CDC Group.
Jean Marie Takouleu