Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, says Nigeria should make investments a minimum of $10 billion yearly for the following 20 years to attain steady and dependable electrical energy nationwide.
He made the assertion on Tuesday, Might 13, through the commissioning of a 2.5 megawatt photo voltaic hybrid energy plant on the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) in Kaduna.
Adelabu stated a long time of neglect have left the nation with a deep infrastructure deficit within the energy sector. He pointed to poor upkeep, low funding, and outdated transmission techniques as main contributors to Nigeria’s electrical energy issues.
“For us to attain purposeful, dependable, and steady electrical energy in Nigeria, we want a minimum of $10 billion yearly for the following 20 years,” he stated.
“However there’s some foundational bottleneck that we skilled prior to now that must be fastened for the spending of this cash to have that means.”
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He stated the Bola Tinubu administration is working to resolve these long-standing points, particularly by prioritising steady energy for key nationwide establishments just like the NDA.
The minister additionally highlighted a key coverage reform, the signing of the electrical energy invoice into legislation, which now permits federal, state, and native governments to take part totally within the energy sector.
“This invoice has achieved liberation and decentralisation of the facility sector to allow all ranges of presidency, federal, state, and native governments, to legally and morally play roles within the energy sector to offer their residents at sub-national ranges electrical energy,” he stated.
“This act has given autonomy to greater than 11 states, and extra are nonetheless coming. They will now play roles within the energy sector from technology to transmission to distribution and even metering.”
Adelabu concluded by stressing the significance of fixing the long-standing infrastructure hole.
“We speak about infrastructure deficit, then we speak about fixing infrastructure deficit, which has piled up over the past 60 years because of lack of upkeep, lack of extra funding to revive our transmission grid,” he added.
