GreenWish Partners taps into Nigeria’s solar potential with $280m investment

GreenWish, a Paris-based private renewable power producer, will finance the construction of 200 MW of new solar power plants in Africa’s most populous country Nigeria. The overall investment pledge is $280 million, reports Bloomberg.

A plant located in the southeastern Nigerian state of Enugu will produce 100 MW, and the company is currently developing two 50 MW solar projects in Kaduna and Jigawa. In addition, several more on-grid and off-grid projects throughout the country are being discussed.

The funding for the project, which is to provide power to 2.5 million people, will be carried out 70% through debt and 30% through equity, GreenWish said on its website.

Subsequently, a power-purchase agreement was made with Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc., the public liability company, to make it possible for GreenWish to sell power to the national grid. It is agreed that the transactions will be conducted in the local currency, the naira, but denominated in dollars so as to avoid the risk of the fluctuations in the naira’s value.

Hence, GreenWish is one step closer to achieving its aim to develop, finance and build a 600 MW diversified portfolio of renewable energy assets by 2020.

Nigeria stands out for its heavy dependency on fossil fuels, and one of the goals set out by its Ministry of Power is to diversify the energy mix, and address the problems of frequent power outages as well as its energy shortfall of 8,000 MW. Although the country’s plan is to build up new capacities focused on using natural gas, it is also proving to be a sound marketplace for solar power producers too.