The World Bank’s fund for poor countries plans to provide a credit of $750 million for clean energy projects in Nigeria to increase to electricity in Africa’s most populous nation, the International Development Association said on Friday.

The bank said that more than 85 million people lacked access to electricity in Nigeria as of 2021, with households and businesses reliant on expensive diesel and petrol generators.

It said the Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) project will be financed by the International Development Association credit and provide access to new or improved electricity supplies to more than 17.5 million Nigerians.

“To further address the access gap, DARES will build on the achievements of the World Bank-financed Nigeria Electrification Project, which has supported the establishment of 125 mini grids and the sale of over a million Solar Home Systems, through which more than 5.5 million Nigerians have gained access to electricity,” the World Bank said.

It added that the project will leverage parallel financing of $100 million from the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet and $200 million from Japan’s International Cooperation Agency in addition to over $1 billion of private capital.