The Federal Government of nigeria and the French Development Agency (AFD) have on Wednesday in Abuja signed a grant agreement of €25 million for the Northern Corridor Project jointly funded by the European Union and the AFD.
The grant agreement of €25million is to strengthen the electricity grid in the North West of nigeria and develop access to electricity.
The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba, signed on behalf of nigeria and the AFD Country Director in nigeria, Xavier Muron, signed the agreement on behalf of AFD.
The Ambassador of France to nigeria, Emmanuelle Blatmann, and the Head of Cooperation at the European Union Delegation to nigeria and ECOWAS, Ms Cecile TASSIN-PELZER witnessed the signing of the agreement.
The Northern Corridor Project, being implemented by the Transmission Company of nigeria (TCN), is meant to strengthen low-carbon economic growth in West Africa by improving the quality of the electricity network in nigeria and supporting the development of a regional electricity market under the West African Power Pool (WAPP).
The AFD Country Director in nigeria, Xavier Muron, explained that the specific objectives of the project, in line with the Nigerian Energy Transition Plan (ETP) are to reinforce globally the north-west network and develop access to electricity for the population; help evacuate/distribute the solar-generated power from future projects in the North and participate in the WAPP interconnection project with the Niger Republic.
The project, he explained, would build more than 800km of 330 kV double circuit transmission lines and construct or upgrade 13 substations.
“The grant agreement signed today represents the EU’s contribution to the project while the AFD contribution of €202 million was signed in December 2020.
“The total cost of the project is around 238 million Euros including a 12 million Euros contribution from TCN,” he explained.
In terms of expected impacts, he said the project would add 5GW evacuation capacity, and provide potential Transmission of 17TWh of additional electricity every year, adding that there would be the possibility of several millions of people having access to electricity and
better electricity service in the short term.
The project is expected to create 600 jobs as 500 jobs would be created during the construction phase and 100 in the operation phase.
He further explained that the project would help TCN to operationalise its “Transmission Expansion Plan”, through the construction of additional Transmission Lines and Substations across nine states in the northern part of the country- Niger, Kebbi, Sokoto, Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa, Bauchi and Nassarawa.
The AFD Country Director in nigeria also highlighted the importance of such a project as a technical enabler for the integration into the grid of the expected solar farms in the North-West part of the country.
He noted that poor transmission network has been a significant bottleneck in many countries for the achievement of mix diversification.
In her remarks, Emmanuelle Blatmann, Ambassador of France to nigeria said“France is committed to helping nigeria achieve its commitments on climate change in line with the Paris agreement as she welcomed this Team Europe piece of work to address it”.
Speaking on behalf of the European Union, the Head of Cooperation. Cecile TASSIN-PELZER said: “We appreciate this Team Europe collaboration with the Government of nigeria, which is a concrete example of how the EU Global Gateway can contribute to major investments in infrastructure development”.
Responding, Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba, thanked the AFD and EU for the intervention in the power sector.
Agba explained that the signing of the agreement was in line with the objectives of the National Development Plan(NDP) of the Federal Government.