4,000 shops to be powered soon in Ariaria market, says REA boss

Amid the controversy over power distribution in the Ariaria market in Aba, Abia State, the Managing Director of Rural Electrification Agency (REA), Damilola Ogunbiyi, has disclosed that 4,000 shops in the market will be powered by the end of October.
    
According to her, the current capacity on ground to commence with is two megawatts, but a total of 9.5MW is expected at the end of the project.
    
The REA boss maintained that with her utmost mandate to create sustainable power supply to people who are not connected and underserved, the step was in the right direction because for a market with great potentials like Ariaria, power should not be a hinderance to their progress.
    
She noted that a total of 4,852 generators were recorded by the IPP when it visited the market which houses 37,000 shops, of which part of its job is to prevent the use of generating sets by giving power.
     
Commenting on the controversy between her outfit and the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC), over power distribution in the market area, Ogunbiyi at the Nigeria Off-Grid Energy and Innovators summit 2018 that held in Lagos said: “we are not taking places we want because the state government and market association have to write to us saying they want to be part before we do anything.”
     
She explained further that in as much as the project is private sector focused, the DisCos do not have a choice because there is an overriding public interest, ‘even in some universities we are working at, they are not happy.”
    
The Nigeria Off-Grid Energy and Innovators summit 2018 organised by the United States African Development Foundation (USADF) and All On (an investment company funded by Shell), witnessed the announcement of winners of the 2018 Nigeria Off-Grid Energy Challenge which was meant to develop home grown solutions.
     
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of All On, Wiebe Boer who considered the country’s renewable energy sector as a new area of venture stated that as an investment company, challenges such as over lapping understanding of regulations was a major issue.
    
He cited that solar panels by regulations have free import duties as well as tax free, but the customs service would interpret the regulation saying since it is energy generation equipment like generator set, duties must be made. There are lots of obstacles that a technical business has to face in Nigeria which affects costs, the All On boss noted.