The Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, disclosed this in a statement on Sunday titled “25m Nigerians to own 5m solar systems at N4,000 monthly.”

Akande was giving further insight into earlier reports that the Federal Government will from next week commence the process of installation of five million solar home systems in underserved and off-grid communities across the country.

The installation is in continuation of the implementation of the government’s Economic Sustainability Plan.

The earlier report, however, elicited questions from Nigerians who wanted to know the cost of owning the solar system.

Akande explained that beneficiaries will be expected to pay about N4,000 monthly over a period of three years.

He said the solar programme nicknamed Solar Power Naija, for which installations starts in December, is being implemented by the Rural Electrification Agency.

“An important aspect of the scheme is the option of outright ownership by beneficiaries at a cost ranging from N1, 500 per week to N4, 000 monthly depending on the capacities, for a period of three years,” Akande said.

He noted that that the arrangement allows as many as 25 million Nigerians to own personal solar systems in their homes.

He added that as indicated in the Economic Sustainability Plan, the five million connections initiative is a private sector-led electricity access acceleration scheme to be facilitated by a low-cost loan facility from the Central Bank of Nigeria and implemented by REA.

The presidential aide said, “The programme will include the assembly or manufacturing of components of off-grid solutions to facilitate the growth of the local manufacturing industry.

“In view of the scale of materials required, solar equipment manufacturers/assemblers will be incentivised to set up facilities in Nigeria, thereby offering additional job opportunities to Nigerians.

“In addition, installation, servicing and payment collections are expected to provide thousands of other jobs. In all, at least 250, 000 jobs will be created.”

It was further learnt that the World Bank which is also participating in the plan, is providing a grant to finance 20 percent of the retail cost of the solar system across the country.

The REA which is the lead implementing agencies of the Solar Home System had through its off-grid solar programme connected the people of Olooji community (Ijebu East) in Ogun State to electricity, for the first time in 200 years.

Olooji solar hybrid has a total capacity of 100KW completed with 304 solar panels, 72 batteries and over 30KM of distribution network cables, serving over 4,000 people.