UK Firm In Talks With Nigerian Investment Fund To Boost Renewable Energy

UK-based Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet is in talks with Nigeria’s sovereign wealth fund to invest in renewable energy to help end blackouts impeding households and businesses in the West African nation.

The GEAPP, founded by The Rockefeller Foundation, IKEA Foundation, and the Bezos Earth Fund in 2021, plans to finalize the terms and size of the funding with the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority by next year, Muhammad Wakil, the organization’s country representative said in an interview.

The Abuja-based NSIA, which manages as much as $5 billion in assets, said in May it was in the process of raising as much as $1 billion internally and from partners to invest in solar and other infrastructure projects over the next three years.

GEAPP, which received investment commitments in excess of $10 billion from its founders and partners at its genesis, is already investing in renewable projects in Africa’s most populous nation.

Within the last two years it has provided $100 million for projects through organizations including Sustainable Energy for All, Rocky Mountain Institute, All On, and investment bank Chapel Hill Denham, Wakil said.

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu, who took office in late May, pledged to make electricity more accessible and affordable in the nation, where more than 40 per cent of its population lack access to power.

Nigeria is encouraging public and private investments in renewables for clean energy. Under the Paris Climate Agreement, it pledged to cut carbon emissions by 20% by 2030 as part of an effort to overcome its energy challenges.

Earlier this month, GEAPP appointed former Nigeria Vice President Yemi Osinbajo as a global adviser to help accelerate clean energy deployment in developing countries.

Osinbajo will support GEAPP’s partnership with governments to unlock faster and greater capital flows into the clean energy sector of target countries. This is according to Chief Executive Officer Simon Harford.