Since 2008, Germany and Nigeria have embarked on a bi-lateral energy partnership to bolster Nigeria’s energy sector, and help the country transition to renewable energy. In an interview with ARISE News on Tuesday, Weert Borner, the German Consul General in Lagos, highlighted that this partnership has yielded fruit, leading to an addition of 670 megawatts to Nigeria’s grid capacity to the final consumers, which is about 15% of the whole of electricity production in the country in 2024.
Borner made this revelation during an interview with ARISE News on Tuesday while discussing how Germany with its expertise can get Nigeria where it needs to be in terms of a healthy energy portfolio.
He said, “We started a bi-lateral energy partnership with Nigeria in 2008, while we (Germany) in parallel started our own energy transition to renewables to phase out coal and other fossil sources of energy production and move to renewables.
“In the recent phases of this bi-lateral energy partnership, we have been concentrating on the grid. There is little history behind that. In 2018, Nigerian president Buhari and German Federal Chancellor Merkel signed an agreement to improve the grid in Nigeria.
“As we all know, there is some electricity production capacity in Nigeria, but only a small part of it is really reaching the final consumers. So this is something where we wanted to contribute with our technology. It’s a PPP, so the government is involved but it’s also private banks financing it and Siemens Energy, our largest energy company, is behind it in the technical implementation.
“The good news now is, with the new government, under President Tinubu, we made some progress, which means that in the first half of 2024, those measures under this so-called PPI (Presidential Partner Initiative), managed to add 670 megawatts to the grid capacity to the final consumers which is about 15% of the whole of electricity production in Nigeria that is reaching the final consumers. So that’s already progress.”
While acknowledging that the transition to renewable energy is not going to be easy and that there is no expectation for Nigeria to “just stop with all their fossil energy sources, be it oil or gas,” he however encouraged that Nigeria embrace the transition, as it a cheaper energy production option and will help in developing the country while producing more jobs. He termed the transition to renewable energy a “global trend” that Nigeria should not miss.
The Consul General said, “Renewables are not just a big environmental case, they are the best business case we can offer for electricity production.
“Germany is already with the statistics of 2023, producing of its huge demand of electricity needs, 58% from renewables, mainly wind, solar, biomass.
“That’s a lot and all our heavy industries – we still have in Germany, steel and cement and chemical productions of global size…more is running on renewables and renewables have been getting cheaper during the last 30 years from its very first development.
“Today, whether you look at solar modules or solar installations, even wind offshore, which is a bit more complex in installing and producing, it’s getting cheaper by the day.
“Therefore, one picture is showing this, that it’s a global trend and we think our message to Nigeria is that Nigeria doesn’t miss this train – building up renewables – because renewables are meanwhile the cheapest solution and they are also a good business case in developing the country. And that’s a very important experience from the German energy transition of the last 20 years.
“When we started, we had kind of a classical electricity production portfolio. We had about 300 big utilities, mainly coal and gas power plants, some nuclear power plants, producing all the energy needed for German industries, households, etcetera. Today, it’s not 300 big utilities, it’s two million decentralised electricity producers because even a farmer who takes a piece of his or her land to build up wind turbines is feeding the grid with renewable energy production and makes a totally different picture of innovation of jobs. Renewables are creating many more jobs than coal, nuclear or other old sources of energy ever did.”
Melissa Enoch
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