Oando: Nigeria Must Invest More to Grow Renewable Energy Sector

Peter Uzoho

With oil now becoming an unpopular investment in the wake of the global push for energy transition, Oando Clean Energy Limited (OCEL) has stressed the need for Nigeria to devote more investment to the grow the country’s renewable energy sector.

Executive Vice President, Oando Clean Energy Limited, the renewable energy subsidiary of Oando Energy Resources, Mr. Ademola Ogunbanjo, made the advocacy at a panel on “Energy Transition: Finance and Investment in Light of Current Realities”, at the recently held Nigerian International Energy Summit (NIES 2022) in Abuja.

According to him, “as oil becomes more and more of an investment pariah, gas needs to remain attractive,” recalling that only a month ago, the European Commission had labelled nuclear and gas as sustainable energy. 

Reinforcing the need for the funding of the growth of the renewable sector, Ogunbanjo said: “The funds from oil and gas will be a facilitator for the growth and scale of the renewable energy sector, especially for oil-dependent nations like Nigeria. 

“That mix is going to stay for the next 50 to 100 years. What we will see, however, for our sake, the environment, and incoming generation, is that Nigeria must begin to invest more in renewables, reduce investments in coal, reduce investments in oil and scale-up gas, so that in the next two to three decades, renewables and gas will provide more of the energy that the country will supply to the world.”

Ogunbanjo, however, explained that Oando Clean Energy Limited was  positioned to support the efforts of the Nigerian government to curate an indigenous approach to the energy mix that works based on Nigeria’s and Africa’s available natural resources to grow the Nigerian renewable energy space

Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, led a strategic panel at the summit which focused on “Strategies for Confronting the Energy Transition,” where a definitive direction for the energy transition was dissected.

The session explored the implications of the energy transition as well as the broad strategies required to revive the industry’s fortune to chart a pathway for the future.

These strategies, as highlighted by the speakers, included investments in physical infrastructure, establishing medium and long-term integrated energy planning, among others.

The strategies they said would be guided by policies and regulations to boost sustainable development.

They advised that indigenous companies must band together to support the efforts of the Nigerian government and Africa by extension, to curate a customised approach to the energy mix that works for Africa. 

This can be achieved when wealth is generated using accessible natural resources to invest in and grow the renewable energy space,” they noted.