Nigeria to benefit from $7m award on clean energy projects

Nigeria and Madagascar have now joined Sierra Leone as the countries that will benefit from the $7 million prize awarded under the Access Co-Development Facility (ACF) funding scheme to support clean energy projects.

According to the firm, this year’s competition had about 100 entries that were competing for the $7 million prize, which also includes a package for technical support designed to bring their renewable energy projects to life.

At the time, Sierra Leone, through Africa Growth and Energy Solutions’ (AGES) 25MW solar project, had already been announced as the first country to be awarded a prize.

The other two winners include Mentach Energy for a 50MW wind project in Nigeria, and Stucky Limited for its 25MW hydro and solar project to be developed in Madagascar. Collectively, the projects are reported will deliver 100MW of electricity to 340,000 homes.

Executive Chairman of Access Power, Reda El Chaar, said: “I am delighted to congratulate today’s well-deserved winners and we look forward to working with each of them to provide the technical skills, expertise and financing to get their projects across the finish line.

“There is still a massive, urgent need for electrification in Africa and we firmly believe that renewable energy will be a significant part of the solution.”

Earlier this year, power assets developer, Access Power, made a call inviting interested eligible energy companies to enter a competition that will provide them with funding to develop renewable energy projects across Africa.

Access Co-Development Facility – shortlisted only five developers. The winners were announced in London at the 18th annual Africa Energy Forum, following a presentation by five shortlisted developers to a panel of expert judges.

The group said the urgent need for electrification coupled with a rapid evolution of the power markets allowed the private sector to profitably develop, own and operate generation assets, while the key evolutions include, liberalisation and unbundling of vertically integrated government-owned utilities; implementation of legal and regulatory frameworks encouraging private sector participation programmes for the promotion and procurement of renewable energy.