Bill Gates, founder of Breakthrough Energy Ventures and co-founder, Microsoft, during a tour of the Arnergy manufacturing facility Wednesday at Lagos, discussed with Arnergy management, financiers, and industry experts about the challenges and prospects of adopting renewable energy in Nigeria.
During the visit of Arnergy’s facility, a portfolio company of Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), experts called for partnerships with financiers and collaboration with industry leaders to accelerate the adoption of renewable energy in Nigeria, especially in light of the removal of petrol subsidies and the increase in electricity tariffs.
They also said that the petrol subsidy removal and increase in electricity tariff have opened a new market for the renewable energy sector.
Gates said, “I see a huge energy transition opportunity where distributed solar solutions like Arnergy’s displaces gasoline generators for millions of SMEs in Nigeria given the recent fuel subsidy removal.”
Not realising a large number of Nigerians rely on petrol generators, Gates said that it is a huge thing for the renewable energy market.
He also pointed out that financing customers and reducing cost of systems will be critical for scale.
The chief executive officer of Arnergy, Femi Adeyemo highlighted the modular Arnergy 5000 lithium battery energy storage systems (BESS) and its proprietary energy management hardware and Solarbase software that were developed by the company’s innovative young Nigerian engineers with an average age of 26 years.
The technology allows financiers, channel partners, and consumers to lease and pay for energy at a cost cheaper than current spend on diesel and petrol generators. Existing customers are in love with her real-time Internet of Things (IoT) remote monitoring and control of the power systems that allow remote shut down and turn on and energy efficiency advisory from anywhere in the world on Android and IoS platforms.
