 Hello, everyone, and thank you again for joining us for an E for C and IEEE virtual salon on energy and renewable energy solutions. I'm pleased to welcome O'Junoa Agemony to this special edition. We were lucky to have her join us. O'Junoa Agemony is an impact investment in development and research with experience in the areas of opportunity maturation, financing, and policies. She is the Senior Technical Advisor to the Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources for Lagos State, the fifth largest economy in Africa, charged with the responsibility to plan, devise, and implement strategies to deliver reliable energy to the citizens of the state. She was previously the Senior Investment Associate at All One, or All On, responsible for driving clean energy investment opportunities while providing strategic, governance, and operational support to All On Investees. Welcome O'Junoa. We're so glad you're with us. I'm pleased to present her now. Thank you very much, and it's my pleasure to join this session. It's a very exciting topic and it's an exciting time in the energy industry in general. It's no better time to be discussing renewable energies given the current discussions around climate change globally and how important the energy is to any climate discussion. But even beyond that, energy is very important for job creation, for any form of economic development, for social development, for education, health, and all of that. So it's really important, and it's a very exciting topic to join. I'll just jump right into the presentation I have, and I want to strictly speak to this. I mean, I'll give some examples that are a bit outside of the table to be very relatable to everyone who's watching. So the topic for this session is finance and investment for renewable energy solutions in Nigeria. Some of the learnings from here would be to keep people across Africa and across other countries. But the examples, two of the main examples in Nigeria, which is one of the biggest markets in Africa in general, so I decided to be discussing this topic. One of the most important reasons why this topic is important is that after the finance and investment for renewable energy solutions have come up as one of the biggest challenges facing the industry. And while the argument remains that, oh, there's a lot of funding due soon to the renewable energy sector. Some of that has been given the huge amount of funding. The top of the funding has yet to be identified to achieve the SDG7. So I'm excited to provide some more clarity around finance and investment for the energy sector, as well as to provide some clarification around the various areas of this kind of solution. So in terms of the problem specifically in Nigeria, a large percentage of the population is off the, or is one is served by the grid. So the population size ranges from, some people say 170 million, 200 million. Of that, about 19 million people are there to be off grid and another 13 million are there to be underserved by the grid. So it's a good chunk of the population. Businesses keep complaining that access to electricity and energy is one of the biggest challenges facing. And this has impacted their ability to be productive, to create jobs, and to generally thrive. In terms of the amount of energy delivered to the national grid, it's number varying. Some people would say it's about 3,000, 2,700,000. Sometimes it goes up to 400,000, a few times a bit more than that. But in general, comparing this number to the typical assumption that one million people require at least one million dollars is a bit of a huge gap in the industry. So the gap is huge and then there have been various solutions that have tried to fill the gap. I'm sorry, the number I mentioned was 1,000 people, so that's one million dollars. And so this gap is filled by about 16 million generators, some of them small, petrol and diesel generators that come to fill that gap. We know the concerns around that pollution, due to the emission, the noise, and I mean there's been a lot of that around transportation. Children cannot study at night and health facilities are not functioning properly due to these challenges. In terms of reaching that gap, obviously solutions have come to the rescue in the short term. Some of these obvious solutions, sometimes many grids or solar homes systems, it's assumed that about 150,000 units have reached these others at the end of 2018, hopefully much more. What is clear is that some of these solutions will take time and many grids will also be coming very quickly. They also take time and they require funding. So the challenge remains, the opportunity is quite huge and funding remains a key requirement. In terms of the market, it's about 120 million people lacking access to the huge gas emission fields. The distribution companies currently providing ongoing power and have suffered and continue to suffer huge losses. A lot of them haven't been able to raise additional money due to the liquidity issues within the national grid. So that remains a challenge. The distribution companies currently providing ongoing power and have suffered and continue to suffer huge losses because of that remains a challenge. But as I mentioned before, upgrade solutions are definitely huge in the future, meaning the solar homes systems and the market for that is going to be about $10 million and over the years. So the huge opportunities that are developed are all looking at how to control it. Instead of that, they are about $100 million by the study done by the rural electrician agency around the world and that's the size of the market for solar homes systems is about $10 million. So I think it's a huge opportunity for anyone looking to find a market that is larger not to absorb the need and it's willing to make a difference. In terms of financing solutions, there are various solutions that have over time been used and I'll spend some time on a few of those solutions providing more context to some of the work that they've done. So impact investors have been one of the key players in the renewable sector in Nigeria. I believe the major reason is that some of the traditional banks haven't really been able to understand the sector. We still feel that it's capital. They are not used to it. Maybe their staff are not even used to handling the transactions, even how new the sector is in general compared to the traditional architecture. So it's understandable that they're taking their time there. The impact investors have over time been able to visit the gap and been able to provide one day and I'll just talk about a few of them very briefly. All on is one of those organizations. I worked there before my previous role. And all on is basically focused on providing funding for those companies that cross the value chain. The focus is on low income households and SMEs. So for companies that are within that sector and that require funding, staff organization is able to provide some staff support. So in terms of providing proper business plan, proper financial model that could be required for any other class of investments. So it's not, when you think impact investors, some people think this is sort of a grant. Do not believe in future investment. People investors want to see an economic and a social impact on the investment. Other investors in the market, one of the two actually meant, actually meant is the impact investor that's focused on the sector as well. We certainly move the capital to Nigeria. So that's an inclination after the size of the market. The focus on investment across the value chain as well. Another which is international is great to energy ventures. This is an organization that's chosen. It's sponsored by Bill Gates and Richard Branson. They recently closed an investment in Nigeria, one of the local companies, Ireland, for about $9 billion, along with other investors including all of Northwarn Electrified, which is also located there. Electrified is another one of those companies or organizations. It is funded and supported, which is one thing to see an economy as renewable in this world. Across Africa and Mississippi in Nigeria. They have a $120 million global productivity, but they also have a $30 million that is dedicated to the Nigeria market. So that's a very good opportunity. This debt energy is one of the other investors in the market. We also focus on the renewable energy sector and funding as well as the sector. So that's another potential source of funding. Conquander is a debt provider. It provides debt to the renewable energy company as the name implies. So focus on solar. So that's another one of the fastest debtors in the market. There are a few others. Largely international organizations within the future for the potential sector to see the impact, to see the education of the health impact, the job creation and all of that, and the importance of that. This takes us into the market. Another group of investors in the industry are the development finance organizations. So most of these are bigger organizations that have bigger money, but are just too hard to niche for the renewable energy sector. One of those is AFD, the French organization. They have a specificity in Nigeria that is sun-dried productivity. For about four million euros, it's so close to supporting the local commercial bank with funding. And they're working with a few local banks. Although I don't believe it's operational again, but it's been touched hopefully come to see. The African development banks are not at great support. They provide funding mostly through bigger programs. One of the programs I will discuss is one by the World Bank, along with the, which is one of the ones I have there, along with the African development, with the rural electrification agency. So the African development bank also supports funds. So they provide funds into other funds. One of which is the off-grid energy access funds that closed last year, in 2018. The first was about $16 million along with other funds, which we need all on and not the development foundation, Harvard and others. Another one organization I've noted there is the Bank of Industry. So that's the local DSI. It's based in Nigeria. It has the renewable energy, mandate as well, or expression as well. Providing funding to the sector. Recently, actually this year, they have a lot of funds along with all of them. One million Naira funding. They provide local currency financing to countries focused on the Niger Delta area of Nigeria. So in terms of funding, that's another source of funding that can be assessed if the project qualifies. In terms of donors, there's a wide range of donors that can have various activities. Some of the activities are more focused on technical assistance while others actually provide some bit of funding for projects. So one of it is DFID which is focus of the Sula Nigeria program and should be ending in 2020. They provide grants for projects that are deploying solar solutions, solar home systems specifically. GIZ is another they provide grants funding for procurement of capital expenditure across the country. They have years of money at the moment. Another is Shell Foundation. They have a program that they are running called the NUMA in one of the programs that they provide. So of course they conduct studies to support the market of the market role. Then there are various US companies in the organization. So there's the USAVF which provides funding in different forms. The USAVF provides some grants, matching grants funding to a program with all of them about $50,000 for a US city with multiple costs of providing funding for people with digital income. If you have a project that needs to be and you need to do a study you can potentially provide that. I just mentioned a few others. Green Bond. This is an idea that has been going on in this course recently. Although the argument for Green Bond is that most of the companies will need more energy so they might not be able to attract a large bond size. The other argument has been that there's potential to actually group companies together or group projects together and actually issue a Green Bond issue. Recently in 2018 I believe the Nigerian government issued a sovereign Green Bond so that's a good start. We're still looking to find a way where companies can come together to group projects that would attract the kind of funding required from the capital market for that. For local financial institutions it's going to be slow. Most of them, as I mentioned are still trying to get used to the market so they don't quite understand the sector as well as they would like to. For the few banks that are leading the way, for example Stirling Bank they've been very well invested in the sector and I'm actually being able to close the future of the central. UBI and Access Bank are one of the banks that are under the AIG program I mentioned before where they're supposed to be on lending based on the funding and FDMB also has a mandate actually for renewable energy. In terms of crowdfunding there are a few options and a few organizations we put energy organizations that are actually free funding through this source. So where various people, hundreds of people provide funding for particular projects that the company has set up I mean there are various things in this range that are there that are mentioned here or there's lend to hand and they're here that is the market that are providing this service. It's very attractive to a lot of people and even young people who share this because people want to be associated with the impactful projects sustainable projects and I think the level of awareness is growing very recently about the need for free energy solutions. This is becoming very attractive for companies where they need to raise really quick funding or working capital they're able to do that. So this is not an exhaustive list this is just a general list of various options that are typically available for fundraising and for investment. I just in case some people are not very familiar with investment instruments I'll just give a brief overview of the types of instruments and some of these organizations provide. So in terms of donors, most times it's grand some are that need to pay back, some are not to be allowed to use the funding as you wish. For the people who are recently designed as to solve these financial problems. In this case you need to actually put a project to support the funding you get back funding after the project has been verified. So that would be a grant for you to be after the fact and then you can use that to provide and develop for the further project. In terms of other instruments that are not of the popular ones. In terms of debt, the funding that is provided to people either short or longer periods of time so it could be working capital where you pay off within a one-year period so it could be traveling where you pay off in a number of years. If you pay a fixed principal then you pay an interest on the song on either fortunately business or a yearly business. FBC has been a very important form of funding that sometimes you need to be lacking. FBC helps to provide share funds to the company and most times when you need to get there most times the organization wants to see that you put some money in or that you have some equity funding to watch the debt they are receiving so that's a very important form of funding that takes more risk because you are not really going to be charged on a yearly basis. Sometimes they might be dividend or it's not always the case. They return money back into the business or the business. So these are just a few examples of some of the funds you provided. Other funds that have been more complex in terms of guarantee to the organizations that provide guarantee. So for the investments that have been made it would be a special guarantee to say okay in case you don't pay the funds then this would be you can draw on this one. A few companies that are providing that form of guarantee in Nigeria one is Infrafery. They have support from Garand School as well as Nigerian Subway NSI Nigerian company organization. So basically those staff is one of the companies that provide guarantee for other companies or other organizations who need to provide other forms of guarantee. In terms of impact I'll just speak very briefly about impact most of you probably already know you're involved in the center in one form or the other the impact we've seen is really amazing. Sometimes it's not as measurable as you'd like but you see that it could be of beneficiary of this funding. So you see business is being able to deliver more they're able to produce more they're able to open more longer hours a day they're able to employ more people they're able to be more productive especially if you have productive these appliances going along with the whatever it is just productive appliances help the business to actually do their business better so you can be a clipper a solar clipper that you provided and they're able to do much more with cherries for diesel for generating it could be drying like a solar dryer for fish for fishermen it could be fishing lines that are solar hard that are used during fishing to help to increase the amount of fishes cost. So we see that this impact is a full range environmentally friendly even the fight against climate change that provide funding and investment to the energy companies schools, hospitals are able to perform better it could be one school in one community that is providing a solution and changes the outcome of that community over the next generation so in terms of even productivity and competitiveness of the business you see that businesses are more competitive their costs are reduced a large chunk of costs for businesses is typically spent on energy so when you reduce the amount of energy automatically you become better and you're able to perform better than you can so in general these are the few areas I thought to touch on in this webinar in terms of the areas that are very crucial for investment financing and maybe if I have some time to take some questions I might touch on an area around the key areas that investors think are for when you're accessing a project or a solution if I have some time I might touch on that but I think that there's a huge opportunity for students and for to join this sector I mean we don't have to be technical although I know most of you are technical there's an opportunity to go into other parts of the business to be financed it could be health and safety it could be human resources given the amount of human capital required for this sector so I believe that there are great opportunities for innovative solutions that are cheaper and giving your background in engineering I think will remind you that these solutions will have to be taken through the overall investment project if I have some time I will talk about what in general I think that's something I come to highlight well thank you Ajunwa that was very very fascinating that was very good to learn to how 120 million people lack access to energy but you know there are so many financial opportunities available what in your experience how do national regulations and investment opportunities in Nigeria how many national regulations are very important for the developers to invest in order to deploy the solutions to the investors it's very important for developers and even investors to have comfort when they are putting the solutions the regulations increase will not change and the investments will not go down the drain it's very important that the regulations put in place are tried and tested they are predictable, they are clear and they are actually implemented properly I give a quick example the mini grid resolution in Nigeria has to be one of the best across Africa because it's been very clear on the key areas so in terms of okay if a mini grid has a specific location and a specific location and even in terms of what kind of content do you get if you have to for any reason so a mini grid or just things around the types of permits required the level of clarity is very important so I believe that national regulations are being very important to provide the comfort required by all the developers and investors in any of these projects that's great to learn and I think that's a wonderful point that you made in general I just want to say thank you again for taking the time to meet with us to do this presentation we really appreciate it I also want to say a special thank you to IEEE for sponsoring the virtual salon and thank you to everyone who's been watching this special edition my name is Janna Melpolder and I work as Webinar producers at Engineering for Change on behalf of myself and my entire team thanks to everyone again have a great day alright thank you bye