Nigeria's energy review: Focusing on solar energy potential and penetration

Abstract

In Nigeria, the rapid population increase and the overreliance on fossil fuel have created significant environmental, health, political, and economic consequences leading to severe socio-economic drawbacks. These factors have developed a wide gap between energy demand and supply due to insufficient local production, necessitating a clean energy supply for all. The photovoltaic device's economic and environmental merits have made it the most suitable clean energy alternative to help developing countries such as Nigeria achieve the SDG-7. However, apart from the device's low efficiency, which is undergoing intensive study globally, other factors affect the penetration of the technology in developing countries, particularly Nigeria. This report systematically reviews the literature on the country's energy crisis and renewable energy potential, leading to an overview of solar energy potential and penetration. The potential of the technology and its penetration in the country were provided. A list highlighting challenges hindering technology penetration was also provided, and a solution for each was recommended.

Keywords: Electricity; Electricity crisis; Energy; Nigeria; Potential and penetration; Renewable energy; Solar energy.

Fig. 1

Variation of energy generation and its sources for over three decades (IEA, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c)

Fig. 2

Summary of Nigeria's electricity system ( adopted from Wijeratne et al. (2016))

Fig. 3

Energy uncertainty indicator (WEC, 2020)

Fig. 4

historical and forecasted GDP growth rate in Nigeria (IMF, 2021)

Fig. 5

Variation of a installed capacity and b capacity change, including historical shifts (IRENA, 2021 (a))

Fig. 6

Energy consumption overview in Nigeria (World-Bank, 2021)

Fig. 7

Tariff variation across the regions and DisCos in Nigeria with a R2T showing the residential three-phase tariffs; b R4 showing the unique residential of the individuals with their step-down transformers; c C3 showing the commercial sector tariffs; d showing the industrial sectors tariffs; e A3 special tariffs such government residents and establishments; f L1 showing street-lightening tariffs across the all the DisCos. The dotted lines represented the planned price to be implemented in the nearest future (NERC, 2021)

Fig. 8

Variation of CO₂-related emission from fossil fuel by sector (MtCO₂/year) (Climate Transparency, 2020)

Fig. 9

Variation of historical electricity consumption across sub-Saharan Africa (IEA, , , (a))

Fig. 10

Variation of electricity production, demand, supply, and final consumption across the sub-Saharan African region (IEA, , , (a))

Fig. 11

The electricity power consumption in kWh per capita with a highlighting variation between countries in West Africa and b showing a variation of consumption between countries across the African continent (IEA, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c)

Fig. 12

Hydroelectricity capacity including operational, under construction, and enormous potential sites (NBET, 2010)

Fig. 13

Wind potential with velocity variation across Nigeria

Fig. 14

Direct normal irradiation and PV power potential (GSA, 2021)

Fig. 15

Circuit diagram of a typical solar PV cell (Kalogirou, 2014)

Fig. 16

Variation of spectral response as a function of wavelength for various PV types

Fig. 17

Solar energy installation ( adopted from REN21, 2020)

Fig. 18

PV installed variation among three sub-Saharan countries (IRENA, 2020)