11 December 2014, Lagos — The Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) is upbeat the approval of US$ 580 000 preparation grant for the expansion of Green Energy and Biofuels (GEB) Bio-refinery project would address Nigeria’s lack access to quality cooking and lighting fuels.
Despite Nigeria’s enormous wealth in energy resources, an estimated 84 percent of households lack access to such fuels.
The SEFA project is a pilot of Small and Medium Entrepreneurship Fundamentals (SME Funds), a social enterprise based in Lagos, and the first bio-energy cooking fuel production facility and distribution network in Nigeria.
Specifically, the SEFA grant will finance technical studies, business advisory services and a full environmental and social impact assessment in support of the scaling-up of SME Funds/GEB operations, particularly the waste-to-ethanol cooking fuel production and distribution in Nigeria, to fully harness economies of scale.
The expansion entails growing their biogel production capacity from 1 000 to 30 000 litres/day and ramping up the cookstove manufacturing supply chain four-fold over the next three years.
Despite Nigeria’s enormous wealth in energy resources, the majority of households lack access to quality cooking and lighting fuels.
In addition, woodfuel is still the main source of energy for cooking and heating for 56 percent of the population.
With a high demand for woodfuel and an estimated 100 million m3 of firewood consumed annually, Nigeria has currently one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, at over 3,3 percent per year.
SEFA is a multi-donor facility to unlock private investments in small to medium-sized clean energy projects in Africa.
– CajNewsAfrica