Nigeria banks scale renewable lending
First Bank of Nigeria discussed scaling renewable energy financing under the DARES programme and cited deals like Lotus Bank’s ₦100 billion facility as examples of banks providing bridge financing for developers. The session highlighted banks’ growing role in infrastructure and energy transition funding in Nigeria. (x.com)
FirstBank has reported deploying more than $9 million into solar-home-system programmes in 2025 and channelled roughly ₦15 billion into modular power plants as part of an expanded sustainability agenda that underpins its shift toward distributed renewable financing. (pmnewsnigeria.com) The Lotus Bank financing framework tied to DARES is structured as revolving credit with facility tranches allowing up to ₦8 billion per developer and tenors of up to 18 months. (nairametrics.com) The same facility is being operated alongside DARES performance mechanisms, with public statements indicating up to 90% counterpart funding for projects that clear the programme’s Performance‑Based Grant approval process. (nairametrics.com) The Lotus Bank arrangement produced an early drawdown when Ventura Logistics secured ₦7.4 billion to deliver an eight‑site mini‑grid package—about 7MW of capacity—targeted at roughly 30,000 households in Ebonyi State. (bizwatchnigeria.ng) DARES itself is a World Bank IDA credit of $750 million designed to leverage more than $1 billion of private capital and expand distributed renewables to about 17.5 million Nigerians, with dedicated windows such as Performance‑Based Grants (PBG) and Minimum Subsidy Tenders (MST) that change project bankability for commercial lenders. (worldbank.org) Commercial banks have been replicating DARES-linked models: First City Monument Bank unveiled a DARES‑aligned ₦100 billion financing initiative in June 2025 aimed at accelerating rural electrification for about two million households, indicating a competitive pipeline for bank-originated DRE credit. (dailypost.ng) IFC and other multilaterals are lining up bank‑facing instruments—IFC has proposed a four‑year revolving “IFC DARES Platform” to mobilise private lenders and provide credit enhancement options that could support larger syndicated deals and shorten origination timelines for participating banks. (disclosures.ifc.org)
