All On makes first investments in Nigeria’s offgrid market
All On, an independent impact investing company, has made its first set of transactions aimed at facilitating increased access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy sources for low income households, SME’s, and communities.
Seeded with funding from Shell, All On works with partners to increase access to commercial energy products and services for under-served and un-served off-grid energy markets in Nigeria, with a special focus on the Niger Delta.
“This initial set of transactions demonstrates our commitment to utilizing a market-based approach to making a sustainable impact in the off-grid energy sector in partnership with global and local market leaders,” CEO of All On, Dr. Wiebe Boer, said. “it is just the beginning of our investments towards improving access to energy in Nigeria for the tens of millions of off-grid households and SMEs across the country,” he added.
This comes at a critical time in Nigeria’s power sector where over 28 million households are either totally off grid or have a ‘bad grid’ connection with less than 4 hours of electricity per day according to one research report.
According to a statement from All On, the initial investments include an equity investment in Lumos Global BV, the fastest growing “distributed utility” in West Africa, and a grant to renowned Nigerian tech ideation incubator, Co-Creation Hub, to launch a challenge to engage Nigeria’s technology innovation ecosystem in the access to energy space.
All On has also entered into a grant agreement with Solar Nigeria, a UK Aid-funded project implemented by Adam Smith International, for the receipt of grant funding to further de-risk investments made by All On in the Solar Home System (SHS) space. The firm is also currently in the latter stages of negotiations for an equity and debt investment in Green Village Enterprises (GVE), the award-winning indigenous mini grid operator in Nigeria headquartered in Port Harcourt.
Commenting on the proposed investment, Ifeanyi Orajaka, managing director of GVE, said: “We at GVE are excited about this relationship with All On. An investment from a world-class organisation such as All On further validates our position as one of the leading and most innovative indigenous clean energy solutions providers in Sub-Saharan Africa. We are very optimistic and look forward to achieving our medium-term target of impacting 2% of Nigeria’s 180 Million population through this partnership.”
GVE has ambition to ensure that it provides clean, reliable and affordable electricity to a minimum of 2% of Nigeria’s population by the year 2022. Part of the company’s project profile include a 50 kilowatt (kW) solar photovoltaic (PV) mini grid to power 220 households in Akpabom, a community in Akwa Ibom state.
On his part, Bosun Tijani, chief executive officer of CCHub, says: “The organisation is proud to partner with All On to support Nigeria’s early stage clean energy entrepreneurs. Matching our expertise identifying and supporting innovative startups with All On’s seed capital, we hope we can unearth amazing enterprises to meet the energy needs and aspirations of Nigerians.”
ISAAC ANYAOGU