By Moses Patience Chat
The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) in partnership with Nigerian investment firm, Chapel Hill Denham (CHD), has established a new local fund model called the Energy Transition & Access Facility for Africa (ETAFA).
ETAFA is an innovative financing initiative, which will enable the deployment of $50 million to support Distributed Renewable Energy (DRE) projects in Nigeria. DRE is known to be the fastest and most cost-effective solution to accelerate clean electricity access to the African continent.
In a statement, GEAPP said it will contribute an initial $10 million and an additional $40 million from Chapel Hill Denham Nigeria Infrastructure Debt Fund.
According to GEAPP, the ETAFA’s financing is structured as a Naira-denominated, low-cost long-term financing, which will directly contribute towards making DRE solutions more affordable, particularly for low income consumers.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Chapel Hill Denham, Bolaji Balogun, said that the support from GEAPP will help Chapel Hill to achieve its priorities of reducing the number of Nigerians without any access to electricity and accelerating the adoption of renewable sources of energy.
He noted that with partnership of global institutions like GEAPP, CHD seeks to mobilize up to $1 billion for clean energy projects in Nigeria and Africa by 2030 and that It is also targeting to reduce the number of people without access to modern energy in Nigeria and Africa by half in the same timeframe.
“Renewable energy development is paramount for Nigeria to transition to clean energy and meet critical climate goals while powering economic and social development. “GEAPP’s partnership with CHD aims to tackle the barriers to Nigeria’s clean energy transition by providing the de-risking capital needed to stimulate the financing of projects that bring clean electricity to, and promote the economic development and sustainable livelihoods of, underserved communities, ” said Stefanie Fairholme, GEAPP’s Head of Investments.