The World Bank has given its approval for a $750 million facility to support the Nigeria Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) project. This project, funded by the International Development Association (IDA), is expected to leverage over $1 billion of private capital and significant parallel financing from various development partners, including $100 million from the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet and $200 million from the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

Collaborating on the DARES project are other development partners such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the German Development Agency (GIZ), SEforAll, and the African Development Bank (AfDB). The primary goal of the DARES project is to provide over 17.5 million Nigerians with new or improved access to electricity through distributed renewable energy solutions. It aims to achieve this by utilizing innovative financing solutions to scale up private sector-led clean electricity provision in Nigeria.

As of 2021, over 85 million Nigerians lacked access to electricity, and those with access to the national grid faced unreliable and insufficient supply, often resorting to costly and highly polluting power from petrol and diesel-run generator sets. The DARES project seeks to address this access gap by building on the achievements of the World Bank-financed Nigeria Electrification Project (NEP), which has facilitated the establishment of 125 mini grids and the sale of over a million Solar Home Systems, benefiting more than 5.5 million Nigerians.

The DARES program will prioritize gender and inclusion, building on the NEP’s gender-related actions to facilitate access to electricity for disadvantaged female-headed households and women-led MSMEs. Shubham Chaudhuri, World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, emphasized the commitment to expanding clean energy-based access in Nigeria through the DARES project, which is the largest ever single distributed energy project of the World Bank globally. The project is expected to benefit over 17.5 million unserved, underserved, rural, and remote Nigerians through the deployment of standalone solar and mini grids, replacing more than 280,000 polluting and expensive petrol and diesel generator sets.

The Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adebalu, expressed excitement about contributing to the DARES program, emphasizing the unlocking of the full potential of the off-grid sector and the positive impact on unserved and underserved communities. The DARES program is set to support Nigeria in closing its electricity access gap and accelerating its transition towards sustainable, efficient, and economically viable electricity supply through effective collaboration and partnerships between the Government, private sector, and development partners.

The International Development Association (IDA) is the World Bank’s fund for the poorest, offering loans with maturities ranging from 25 to 40 years, grace periods of 5 to 10 years, and interest rates of between 1.5% - 2.8%, depending on the borrower's eligibility. Regular IDA eligible borrowers may take advantage of no-interest loans.

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