In April 2023, Africa Transaction Advisory Director, Ifechukwude Uwajeh, was a panelist at the NOMAP Productive Use of Energy (PUE) stakeholder event on financing productive load assets to grow and scale mini-grid projects

NOMAP, founded in 2018, is a neutral market-building entity focused on accelerating off-grid energy access in Nigeria. It was borne out of a partnership between the Shell Foundation, the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and USAID / Power Africa under their Scaling Off-Grid Energy Grand Challenge for Development (SOGE) partnership.

The event covered a wide range of topics pertaining to PUE and mini-grids, including rural development, gender inclusion, mini-grid project viability, credit evaluation, social impact, demand stimulation, appliance financing and stock financing.

Financing options for productive use is limited and comes at a high cost to end-users. Although there are a few interventions offering grants, these funding opportunities are time-bound and cannot commensurably scale to meet fast-growing demand for productive appliances among newly-electrified communities.

NOMAP is working with three mini-grid developers across selected sites in three states to implement a pilot to test the viability of a PUE finance vehicle that will offer more favorable terms than prevailing market rates offered by commercial lenders. NOMAP is on-lending to solar mini-grid developers for the purchase of productive use appliances at concessionary interest rates that will be provided to productive community users under a lease-to-own arrangement. The funding will finance PUE assets such as refrigerators, sewing machines, millers and other electrical appliances that can be utilized for income generation with the goal of increasing electricity usage in communities where mini grids are operational – and in turn increasing revenue for mini grid developers to stimulate further investment.

The pilot is expected to reach more than 500 small businesses across 20 mini-grids locations in Nigeria. Lessons from the pilot will be shared with sector actors and will inform the development of a sector-wide fund for productive use financing.

“I am humbled to have been part of an excellent cohort of panelists at the NOMAP Productive Use event moderated by the esteemed REAN President, Ayo Ademilua,” said Uwajeh. “It is always a pleasure to share the financing solutions deployed by GreenMax to make funding available for various categories of electrification efforts – including in this context for productive uses of energy and mini-grids.”