The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), an entity that manages the country’s sovereign wealth fund, has issued an expression of interest (EOI) to pre-qualify developers interested in building a 10 MW solar plant in the Kumbotso Local Government Area, Kano State, in northern Nigeria.
The project will be owned by Haske Solar, a special purpose vehicle jointly held by the federal government, the state government, and the authorities in Kumbotso. It will be built on about 24 hectares of land at the south of Kano, around 16.5 km from the center of town, the NSIA said, without elaborating. Interested developers have until June 3 to submit their proposals.
According to the latest statistics from the International Renewable Energy Agency, Nigeriahad only installed 28 MW of solar by the end of 2019, despite its huge potential.
The government of the populous West African state signed power purchase agreements in 2016 – via its offtaker, the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trader – to buy power from 14 projects across the northern part of the country, with capacities ranging from 50 MW to 100 MW. None of these projects has been completed to date. The Nigerian government recently sought to persuade investors to accept reduced payments for the energy they would generate.
