A review of Nigerian energy access studies: The story told so far

Decentralized Renewable Hybrid Mini-Grids for Rural Communities: Culmination of the IREP Framework and Scale up to Urban Communities

“…The LCOE range arrived at $0.0337-0.171/kWh across both communities. This is reasonably comparable to the typical distribution companies (DISCOs) electricity tariff in Nigeria in the range of $0.069-0.16/kWh [9,93] and is less expensive than the tariff of operational mini-grids in the country in the range of $0.40-$1.00/kWh [69,94]. These results raise optimism for attracting investments as these communities have already been identified low-hanging fruits [11].…”

“…Among the tools, HOMER is found to be the most widely used tool for hybrid system analysis by several researchers worldwide [27,33,34]. Some of these studies are discussed by means of extensive topical case study reviews across national [9], international [33] and regional [34] geographic scopes. Across the reviews, solar resource was the most investigated RE resource especially in collaboration with other RE technology applications and resources, namely, wind and hydro.…”

“…The country produces 781,000 tons of animal waste/day, which are largely untapped for energy generation, while its daily production of 120,000 tons of fuelwood are ineffectively and traditionally used for cooking [9]. Overall, Nigeria has an untapped 91.4 million tons per year of agricultural residues that could be used for bioenergy [9]. These resources could be harnessed for clean energy production to meet the base load to serve the energy needs at community levels without the need for short-term storage [26].…”

“…The United Nations' goal of affordable and clean energy (SDG7) embodies a magnificent vision [3], but its realization has not progressed extensively particularly at addressing the socio-economic dichotomy prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa [4][5][6] and the socio-cultural intricacies involved [7,8]. Previous studies highlight the need to harmonize the lessons learned from experience into a standardized and holistic integrated framework for improving localized energy access in sub-Saharan Africa [9,10]. In order to fill this gap, the Integrated Rural Energy Planning framework 2 of 25 (IREP) was developed to offer a unified road map for locating, planning and operating decentralized renewable hybrid off-grid energy systems for localized (rural) applications in low-income countries [11].…”

“…Overall, the IREP framework entails a multi-faceted scheme that considers crucial factors to spur sustainable investments, drive down operating costs and consequently raise the affordability of electricity service for the different customer segments within the developing world context [16]. Nigeria was selected as case study for the framework due to the combination of its precarious energy access situation [9] and the relevance of its economic characteristics in the African region and the globe [17,18]. Nigeria presents a relevant case study for the developing world especially countries in sub-Saharan Africa.…”