IFC and Canadian Govt. Invest $5M in Husk Nigeria to Expand Solar Mini Grids in Northern Communities

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), in partnership with the Canadian Government, has committed $5 million to Husk Nigeria in a bid to scale up the deployment of solar hybrid mini-grids across underserved communities in Northern Nigeria.

The investment, announced in Lagos on Thursday, is part of a broader plan to address the country’s deep-rooted energy poverty and expand access to affordable and reliable power in areas still largely disconnected from the national grid.

The funds will support Husk in constructing and operating up to 108 solar hybrid mini grids. These installations are expected to deliver approximately 28,750 new electricity connections, reaching around 115,000 individuals and businesses in remote communities where grid extension remains financially and logistically impractical.

This investment marks the first project under the IFC’s Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) Platform—a $200 million debt facility launched in November 2024 to spur private-sector-led renewable energy solutions across West and Central Africa. Husk’s Nigerian project, with a total estimated cost of $25 million, is thus positioned as a flagship initiative for the DARES platform’s rollout.

The DARES Platform is closely aligned with the World Bank-financed Nigeria DARES Project, a much larger intervention approved with a budget of $750 million in December 2023. Implemented by Nigeria’s Rural Electrification Agency (REA), the Nigeria DARES Project aims to deliver decentralized renewable energy (DRE) solutions to over 17.5 million Nigerians, targeting households, micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and public institutions.

IFC said its $5 million commitment to Husk consists of a $2.5 million senior loan from its own account, paired with a concessional subordinated loan of $2.5 million from the Canada-IFC Renewable Energy Program for Africa. The financing is structured as a revolving loan facility, allowing Husk to draw and repay funds multiple times during the course of the project. This model is designed to provide flexible, long-term, and affordable capital, often a major bottleneck for renewable energy developers operating in rural sub-Saharan Africa.

Ethiopis Tafara, IFC’s Regional Vice President for Africa, described the initiative as an “innovative approach to tackling one of Africa’s most pressing challenges—energy access.” According to Tafara, IFC’s collaboration with Husk sets a precedent for replicable, scalable models across the continent.

“By partnering with Husk, a leading renewable energy developer globally, through the first project under the DARES Platform, we are not only addressing the immediate electricity needs of underserved communities in Nigeria but also laying the foundation for a scalable model that can be replicated across the continent,” Tafara said.

Husk’s CEO, Manoj Sinha, echoed that sentiment, stating that the nature of the financing is what the mini-grid sector has long required to unlock its full potential. “This innovative debt facility is exactly what the minigrid industry needs to scale — blended, long-term and affordable capital,” he said.

Speaking specifically on the project’s implications for Nigeria, Olu Aruike, Country Director for Husk Nigeria, emphasized the impact of scaling solar mini-grids on rural electrification goals. “Adding 108 new communities to our minigrid portfolio with IFC support is an important step toward our goal of deploying at least 250MW of decentralized renewable energy projects in Nigeria,” Aruike said.

The partnership also underscores the increasing involvement of international development institutions in Nigeria’s energy transition efforts. Both the IFC-backed DARES platform and the World Bank-funded Nigeria DARES project feed into the Federal Government of Nigeria’s broader Energy Transition Plan (ETP), which aims to deliver universal access to energy, end energy poverty, and facilitate the country’s pathway to net-zero emissions by 2060.

Data from the REA shows that the Nigeria DARES Project aims to power up to 3,244,900 households through decentralized renewable energy. This would impact over 17.5 million Nigerians, many of whom live in the northern region, where energy access remains one of the lowest in the country.

While Nigeria has made some progress in expanding its electricity grid, millions of citizens, particularly in rural and conflict-prone regions, remain in darkness or rely on costly and polluting alternatives such as diesel generators and kerosene lamps. Solar hybrid mini grids offer a cleaner, more sustainable, and increasingly viable alternative. However, the sector continues to struggle with high upfront capital costs, limited access to finance, regulatory bottlenecks, and long timelines for project development.

The IFC-Canada-Husk collaboration is one of several recent initiatives intended to overcome these hurdles by reducing financial risk and crowding in more private investment into the mini-grid space. The revolving nature of the loan facility offered to Husk is expected to accelerate deployment by easing cash flow constraints and allowing the developer to roll out sites more quickly without waiting for full returns on prior installations.

As Nigeria moves to diversify its energy mix, reduce emissions, and fulfill its electrification commitments under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), initiatives like this are likely to play a critical role. However, questions remain about long-term sustainability, affordability for end-users, and the regulatory support needed to ensure off-grid power solutions reach scale. Other concerns include the government’s recent move to ban the import of solar panels, with the aim of boosting local production. Experts have warned that if carried out, a solar import ban will significantly jeopardize the push to bridge Nigeria’s electricity deficit through cleaner energy.