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Plans are underway in Nigeria to integrate its electricity infrastructure with telecommunications networks in a bid to accelerate digital access and improve service reliability.
The initiative aims to leverage the country’s extensive power grid to support telecom expansion, particularly in underserved rural areas where connectivity challenges remain a major barrier to economic growth, reports The Guardian.
This was disclosed by the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of REA, Abba Aliyu, at the second edition of the Rural Connectivity Summit (RuralConnect 2.0), organised by Business Metrics Limited in Lagos under the theme “Rural Inclusion at Scale: Connecting the Next 25 Million Users for Frontier Market Growth,” yesterday.
Aliyu disclosed that Nigeria has more than 11,000 rural base stations, with more than 40 million litres of diesel estimated to be consumed monthly to power a large proportion of them.
“Across the digital sector, when you are talking about rural base stations and rural connectivity, we have over 11,000 rural base stations. And it’s estimated that over 40 million litres of diesel are consumed every month to power a lot of these rural base stations,” Aliyu said.
Represented by the agency’s Executive Director, Technical Services Directorate, Umar Umar, he described reliable electricity as “the enabling infrastructure for rural connectivity,” adding that REA and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) are working towards integrating electricity infrastructure with telecommunications networks.
According to him, the collaboration has progressed from mapping rural mini-grids and telecommunications base stations to evaluating business models and preparing pilot projects involving operators, tower companies and mini-grid developers.
The REA boss also highlighted REA’s existing interventions, including the Nigeria Electrification Project, under which about 380 grant agreements have been signed, more than 150 hybrid solar mini-grids commissioned and approximately 1.45 million solar home systems deployed.
