[ad_1]
Auxano photo voltaic, an off-grid vitality agency funded by All On, an impression investor seeded by Shell, has commissioned on Thursday a 100-megawatts (MW) photo voltaic manufacturing plant in Lagos, with ambitions to chop imports of Chinese language-made photo voltaic panels.
The plant, constructed with $2 million in financing, is a totally automated manufacturing manufacturing unit that covers about 5,730 sq. metres of land in Ibeju, Lekki, 5 minutes from the Lekki Deep Seaport.
The power incorporates manufacturing, warehouse and workplace house. It has over 141kwp of put in photo voltaic vitality programs and is provided with Asian-certified manufacturing gear designed to supply premium PV fashions.
Learn additionally: Combating Nigeria’s local weather change with photo voltaic vitality options
Information revealed by Ember, a world vitality assume tank, confirmed that within the first half of 2023, exports of photo voltaic panels from China grew by 34 p.c, with 114 gigawatts (GW) shipped worldwide, in comparison with 85 GW in the identical interval final yr. That is equal to the whole put in photo voltaic panel capability of the USA (113 GW).
Auxano seeks to exchange demand from Nigeria with native manufacturing. The corporate targets manufacturing of over 2,000 photo voltaic panels a day upon full operation and a 100MW capability of photo voltaic panels per yr.
Osagie Okubor, nation chair of Shell Corporations in Nigeria, mentioned: “Auxano is a visible illustration of what we at Shell hoped to attain after we established All On in 2017.
“With the singular aim of serving to energy-poor communities in Nigeria achieve entry to vitality by unlocking potential off-grid clear vitality options, All On has made strategic investments to attain this and we’re proud that our assist for All On has culminated within the commissioning we’re witnessing at the moment.”
Chuks Umezulora, CEO and co-founder Auxano Photo voltaic, mentioned: “Our focus is to penetrate the Nigerian market earlier than shifting in the direction of exporting the Photo voltaic PV to neighbouring nations.
“Our goal is each the formal – photo voltaic companies who’re into mini-grids, business and industrial photo voltaic suppliers – and the casual sector – the importers of photo voltaic panels for resale.”
Umezulora mentioned the foremost problem to getting the manufacturing unit up was accessing finance (particularly the capital expenditure) to ship the challenge on the forecasted time.
“This facility is one in all many to come back and we look ahead to eradicating the numbers of individuals within the nation with out entry to electrical energy by offering reasonably priced photo voltaic programs,” he mentioned.
The funding from All On is one in all its greatest because it began financing clear vitality initiatives.
Learn additionally: Auxano commissions 100mw capability photo voltaic PV plant
“The success of Auxano as the primary privately-owned photo voltaic meeting manufacturing unit is a triumph for the promotion of native manufacturing throughout the Nigerian renewable vitality sector,” mentioned Caroline Eboumbou, CEO of All On. “Our funding on this manufacturing unit aligns with All On’s dedication to encourage different stakeholders, traders, and authorities to localize the photo voltaic provide chain, finally driving affordability and accessibility of photo voltaic merchandise, particularly in gentle of the rising curiosity in photo voltaic vitality options amongst Nigerians.”
On his half, Salihijo Ahmad, managing director of Rural Electrification Company, mentioned; “Localising renewable vitality (RE) gear provide chains by creating native manufacturing capability is likely one of the key methods to make sure the safety of provide of RE gear for challenge deployment, whereas additionally fostering native financial progress and offering first rate employment alternatives for Nigerians.
“I additionally commend All On and different stakeholders who supported the challenge straight with funding, technical help, licensing, and different related enterprise facilitation companies. These collaborations are very key and extra of such are wanted to handle the dual issues vitality poverty and the local weather disaster pose.”
The challenge developer needed to navigate provide chain crunches, international change challenges, enterprise growth points, the ups and downs of being a producer in a troublesome atmosphere.
[ad_2]
Source link