Financing opportunities for renewable energy

On 19 September 2021, the First City Monument Bank (FCMB) and GIZ-Nigerian Energy Support Program (NESP) organized a renewable energy webinar. The topic of the webinar: The Switch to Clean Energy – Optimizing your Energy Needs.

According to FCMB, Nigeria is grappling with an epileptic power situation with half of its entire population of over 200 million living with little or no power. The most hit are the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) who source for alternative power supply to run their businesses. To illustrate, available statistics show that erratic power supply results in more than $25 billion in annual losses to the economy, more than 6% of GDP.

For this reason, we were invited to speak on Leveraging on Partnerships and Opportunities for Finance.  

Our summarized message

Our key messages on the subject are:

1. Switching to clean energy is good for your business. This applies to end-users of renewable energy and participants in the supply chain.
2. For companies in the supply chain, our solutions are designed to connect you with the sort of partnerships and financing to realize your energy investment initiative.

Firstly, according to The Sun news publication on 11 March 2021, “Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) expended about N81.91 billion on alternative energy sources in 2020”[1]. This reflects the ongoing trend of businesses and households in Nigeria generating their own electricity. Moreover, SMEs often accomplish this using high costing petrol. Thus, we argue that this problem buttresses the importance of off-grid renewable energy.

Our presentation covered innovations in sustainable energy business models. We note that the (clean) energy-as-a-service (EaaS) business model allows MSMEs to access green energy without asset ownership.

Finally, we outlined the processes by which we assist companies in the renewable energy supply chain. Especially, if they are looking for finance and/or technical partners.  

In summary, our position is that we support the switch to renewable energy in Nigeria by:

1. Empowering African energy companies to become investment ready.
2. Connecting African energy companies to financiers.
3. Creating partnerships to realize energy sector investments.

[1] Sunnewsonline (2021): Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) expended about N81.91 billion on alternative energy sources in 2020. Available at: https://www.sunnewsonline.com/man-expends-n81-9bn-on-alternative-power/