In a decisive move to accelerate energy access while marking a major milestone for Nigeria’s energy sector, the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) held the first grant signing ceremony under the World Bank funded Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-Up (DARES) Project since its official launch in 2024 — a crucial step in Nigeria's commitment to electrifying unserved and underserved communities, driving economic growth, and improving the quality of life for millions.
The DARES Project, is structured to catalyze the off-grid energy market through targeted grant support for mini-grid and standalone solar projects. A key initiative under the Nigeria Electrification Programme (NEP), DARES is designed to facilitate the deployment of renewable energy solutions across Nigeria. These solutions are vital for providing reliable, and affordable electricity to communities that are currently off-grid, thereby unlocking their potential for social and economic advancement. The Nigeria DARES project aims to impact the lives of 17.5 million Nigerians.
Under the Performance-Based Grant (PBG) sub-component for isolated mini-grids, Privida Power Limited secured grant to deploy 2.47 megawatts (MW) of solar mini-grids across eleven (11) communities in Kogi State, providing over 11,027 new connections.
In addition, 8 companies under the Standalone Solar Systems (SAS) component, including Baobab Plus, Salpha Energy, Asolar, NTA-StarTimes, A4&T, Sunking Greenlight Planet, Bboxx and D.Light — signed agreements to roll out tier 1 & 2 plug and play solutions to households and MSMEs to increase energy access to rural Nigeria.
Today marks a significant day. We are signing this grant agreement with one of our RESCOs, Privida Energy, which is committed to adding a total of 2.5 megawatts of reliable, clean electricity that will give us an additional 11,000 connections. For the solar home systems, we aim to deploy 1.6 million standalone solar home systems—a higher figure than the total solar home systems we deployed under the Nigerian Electrification Project. I think this signifies the level of scaling-up we aim to achieve under the DARES project for us to address the electricity access challenge in the country.
Abba Aliyu Managing Director/CEO of the Rural Electrification Agency
We have quite a number of other pathways that will be opening, which include the interconnected mini-grids and other standalone solar pathways that we have as it relates to productive use of equipment and others. There's a lot to come, but thanks for the dedication of the developers, and also financiers alike, and even the team at the PMU. We are here today and we look forward to a very, very productive programme as we move along.
Olufemi Akinyelure, Head of the Nigeria Electrification Programme (HNEP)
In Kogi State, Privida Power's projects will serve communities including Abocho Ojogba, Emewe Efopa, Icheu, Ochi Ofago, Offa, Ogene Ago, Ojamapunu, Oji Ofa, Ojo Agefu, Okura Ofate, and Onyakoji, with plant capacities tailored to local needs from 61kW up to 704kW per community.
The Standalone Solar grantees joining today are expected to amplify this impact further, rapidly expanding affordable solar solutions across the most remote parts of Nigeria, one home, one business, and one dream at a time.
This initiative also contributes to the broader Mission 300, a global effort to deliver energy access to 300 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2030. As Nigeria advances toward achieving its universal electricity access goals, the REA, through DARES, remains at the forefront of innovation, partnerships, and inclusive growth.