Vice President, Power, Energy, Climate and Growth complex of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Mr Amadou Hott has disclosed that the bank has approved a grant of 1.5 million dollars (about N540 million) to support power project in Jigawa state, Nigeria.

Disclosing this in an interview in Abidjan on Saturday, he said: “In Nigeria, there are some projects we are doing. Presently, we have approved in Jigawa state, a grant of more than 1.5 million dollars to develop a project to build two times 100 megawatts. The grant has just been approved by the board two days ago.

“The idea there is to really use the money to establish everything required to develop the project, to make sure everything is available and then organize a bidding process to attract investors,’’ he said .

According to Hott, there were other projects the bank had invested in Nigeria, like the Gas to power project, targeting 500 megawatts.

“We are hoping to get on board on that by next year, and also the 14 solar power mix being prepared in Nigeria with sovereign investors,’’ he added

He noted that some investor had approached the bank to finance their work, adding that the bank would be involved in five or six of the 14 projects.

The Vice President further said that the bank had guarantee programme that was already put in place, to guarantee some of the projects.

“We call them the Partial Risk Guarantee (PRG). So when the budgets are ready, the guarantees will be utilised to minimize risk so that investors can be attracted to these kinds of projects,’’ he said

On electricity generation, he said the bank had been doing a lot in the country in the past five years.

“The bank is doing a lot; if you look at our electricity generation over the past five years, our share of renewable energy has increased. Before 2016 we were at 74 per cent of our generation mix of renewable energy. Last year, 100 per cent of our power generation was on renewable energy,’’ he said

He said the AfDB financed 1,400 megawatts of power and 100 per cent of them were on renewable energy, such as solar and hydro.

He said that going forward, the bank would increase a lot of its shares in renewable energy portfolio.