By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Nigerian government has commenced discussion with Egyptian authorities with a view to boost electricity supply through renewable energy in Nigeria.
Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu and the Egyptian Ambassador to Nigeria, Ihad Awad, had the discussion on Monday in Abuja.
The minister during the meeting affirmed the commitment of the federal government towards seeing that Nigerians have efficient power supply in the nearest future.
Aliyu told the meeting that the government of Nigeria signed a power project deal with Siemens AG, a Germany-based firm in 2019, which he said has brought together Nigeria’s ministry of power, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, and the Electricity Distribution Companies, DISCOs, in search of solutions to the country’s power challenges.
He said “The deal is to deliver up to 25,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity to the national grid in phases and the federal government desires more of such partners.”
Aliyu stated that the anticipated area of cooperation between Egypt’s ministry of electricity and renewable energy and Nigeria’s federal ministry of power may include the areas of provision of technical support in transmission and distribution networks, promotion as well as in the renewable energy system in the electricity sector.
In his response, the Egyptian Ambassador, Awad, said the country and Nigeria will complement each other and highlighted the government’s efforts to see improvement in the energy sector.
Describing electricity as the engine of development, he stated that both countries are working to ensure the realization of a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, on the areas of collaboration, Vanguard reported.