Nigeria’s Sterling Bank Plc recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with an American renewable energy company —Zola Electric — to provide credit facilities for Nigerian businesses and households in need of constant and clean power supply.
How the partnership will work – the renewable energy company will avail Nigerians access to renewable energy solutions, while Sterling Bank Plc will finance the process by providing loans to customers for the transactions.
Zola Electric claims it can solve Nigeria’s electricity problem – According to Zola Electric’s Chief Executive, Mr Bill Lenihan, his company has studied the Nigerian electricity market and figured out a way to proffer lasting solution to the country’s electricity needs.
Speaking further during the MoU signing ceremony in Lagos, Mr Lenihan said over 2.2 billion people across the world do not have access to reliable power supply.
Nigeria’s electricity challenge is a thing of national shame – This is a problem most peculiar to Nigeria, where many people live in perpetual darkness due to constant power outages. The ugly situation has been characteristic of the oil-rich country, despite the availability of both fossil, thermal, and renewable energy sources.
“Our mission is simple, to offer 24-hour clean energy. Today we use our solution to solve power problems across Africa. In Nigeria, we want to solve the problems of those who have access to grid and unreliable power supply. Average household in Lagos has an average grid power supply of about between four and eight hours.
“Our solutions are designed and built for purpose to your energy needs and economic situation. Every single home and business is treated in this way. It is autonomous with seamless interoperable integration with solar grid and generations with smart connected technology providing optimisation.’’
Is this a competition for power holding companies?
It depends on how you look at it. The Nigerian electricity market is one with immense potentials. And currently, operators do not have not demonstrated enough capacity to meet growing demands.
Therefore, the emergence of Zola Electric might not be a competition in the real sense of the word. If anything, it should serve as motivation for the other players to do more in order to maintain and probably increase their market shares.
How Sterling Bank Plc will benefit from this
The lender will benefit by earning interests from every loan issued to potential customers of the American energy company.
Sterling Bank Plc is a Nigerian tier-2 lender whose stock is currently trading at N2.32 on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.