The Federal Government has said that the plan to ban the importation of photovoltaic solar panels into Nigeria will not take effect immediately.

The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Rural Electrification Agency, Abba Aliyu, told The PUNCH exclusively that the government is not contemplating banning solar panel imports now.

According to Aliyu, though Nigeria has started producing solar panels, the capacity is still below what the country needs to scale power generation and achieve universal energy access.

Recall that the Minister of Science and Technology, Uche Nnaji, recently said the Federal Government was willing to support local manufacturing of solar panels while restricting imports.

Nnaji highlighted Nigeria’s capacity to produce solar panels through the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure.

“With NASENI here, you know that we have panels. It has a factory that has started producing solar panels, and other private individuals are also producing solar panels as we speak. So, all we need to do is, even through science and technology, through our Presidential Executive Order No. 5, we will stop all these importations of solar panels. We will support our local industries to grow,” Nnaji said.

During a roundtable discussion with the Lagos State Government recently, Aliyu also highlighted that there were ongoing efforts to change the narrative and domesticate the manufacturing of renewable equipment in the country.

“Over N200bn has been spent on the importation of PV panels into the country. While there is a need for that importation, one of the key things our agency is striving for is domestic manufacturing of this renewable equipment. Lagos, being the centre of excellence, is going to lead a total war in that domestication,” he said.

However, in a chat with our correspondent, Aliyu clarified that the comments did not indicate that the ban would take immediate effect.

He emphasised that the ban would not take effect unless the country’s production capacity is ramped up to satisfy local demands for PV panels.

“We are not banning solar importation for now. We are incentivising our own local manufacturing for us to take over. But for now, we do not have the capacity to address the needs of the country.

“Nevertheless, it does not mean that we should take our eye off incentivising local manufacturing and assembly. It’s part of the mandate of the minister that we must catalyse manufacturing. And that is why we are working.

“I can tell you the number of projects that we catalyse. We have close to a 600-megawatt capacity of PV panel manufacturing. We are working to catalyse the investment of the Lithium battery assembly plant in Lagos at the Lekki Free Zone.

“We are in discussion with an oil and gas company that wants to come to the renewable 14-stage manufacturing of lithium batteries. These are things that we are pushing and we are hoping to make them a reality,” Aliyu said.