ENGIE Energy Access Nigeria has unveiled its plan to connect 2,700 unelectrified health centres in Nigerian communities to stable electricity supply using renewable energy over the next four years, starting in August of this year.
A statement by ENGIE on Saturday said the plan was revealed by the company’s Managing Director Mr Bankole Cardoso, at the Powering Africa Summit in Washington D.C., where he spoke on the ‘Health Electrification” panel, alongside other energy industry leaders from across the world.
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Powering Africa Summit 2022 is a gathering of global energy industry leaders; key players from North America with ministerial and governmental participants from across Africa to drive energy developments on the African continent.
According to data from Sustainable Energy For All, Nigeria currently has 36,000 health centres of which 13,000 are without electricity.
But Cardoso says the health centre electrification project is closely aligned with ENGIE Energy Access’ mission to improve the livelihoods of people in rural Africa through renewable energy solutions.
The MD said his company will implement the electric power supply intervention program in four identified levels of healthcare provisioning. These include Primary Health Centres with beds for emergencies and maternity; First Hospitals with 30-60 beds capacity; Secondary Hospitals with 60-120 beds capacity; and Tertiary Referral Hospitals with above 120 beds and capacity to undertake surgeries.
He stated that “ENGIE Energy Access through its Solar Home Systems brand, MySol, and its Mini grid business, is equipped to meet the power needs of rural health centres.
“Whether it’s MySol’s range of small Solar Home Systems which can power and improve service delivery significantly at primary health posts because of their low energy needs; or MySol’s range of large Solar Home Systems which will increase efficiency at first hospitals, all levels of healthcare provisioning can and will be fully catered to.
“For services at secondary hospitals, which are likely to own sophisticated diagnostic medical equipment, the much larger MySol Solar Business Solutions is available to cater to this range while ENGIE Energy Access’ mini grids will cater to tertiary referral hospitals, bolstering their capacities.”
In addition, he said ENGIE Energy Access through this plan will be offering productive use appliances to the communities where these health centres are located, thereby boosting income-generation for the greater community by empowering people in economic activities such as welding, charging stations, Internet cafes, frozen foods businesses, and milling factories.
‘‘Key for us is sustainability. Typically, with projects like this you have the CAPEX, you install and then there’s no maintenance. Our business model not only provides a robust after-sales operations and maintenance scheme, but it also reduces the current expenses of most health centres. The community, the health centres, and individuals will all benefit,’’ Cardoso stated.
He noted that, as the largest off-grid energy provider in Nigeria with more than 250,000 people using ENGIE Energy Access products, the company boasts a large team that is capable of handling the entire value chain from inbound logistics, clearing at the ports, sales and marketing, after-sales support, customer invoicing and money management, and monitoring and evaluation.
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