Nigeria Needs Multi‑pronged Strategy For Electricity Delivery To 17.5m People – Stakeholders

Stakeholders in Nigeria’s renewable energy sector say that only a coordinated, multi-pronged strategy can close the country’s widening electricity gap and deliver reliable power to millions of Nigerians still living in energy poverty.

They made the call during a panel discussion titled “Who Will Power Nigeria Next? Utility Partnership, Private Power and Mini‑grid Market” at Solar and Storage Live Nigeria 2026, held in collaboration with the Renewable Energy Association of Nigeria (REAN).

The Rural Electrification Agency (REA) aims to scale up Nigeria’s energy access gap by providing new or improved electricity supplies to more than 17.5 million Nigerians

COO and Co‑founder of Ashdam Solar, Damilola Asaleye, said Nigeria’s energy demand is now so large that no single organisation or institution can solve the country’s power challenges alone.

She stressed that the national utility, mini‑grid developers and private‑sector players must work together to tackle energy poverty, with each having a clearly defined role in the ecosystem.

Asaleye noted that, despite their limitations, utilities remain critical because they supply major cities and will continue to do so. However, she pointed out that even urban centres such as Lagos still experience energy poverty, albeit in a different form from rural and peri‑urban communities.

In her view, the grid will remain the backbone of national infrastructure, but it must increasingly be complemented by new models such as interconnected mini‑grids.

She highlighted the recent commissioning of Nigeria’s first interconnected mini‑grid as evidence that utilities and mini‑grid developers can jointly expand access by connecting distributed systems to the existing grid.

She added that the private sector has a very important role, describing it as the real backbone of investment and innovation in the industry.

According to her, private companies are responsible for mobilising capital, structuring projects and operating at both the front line and the back end of delivery.

Mini‑grid developers, she said, already play a major role in rural communities and hard‑to‑reach locations where the utility cannot extend service now or in the foreseeable future, deploying decentralised systems tailored to local needs.

Asaleye welcomed the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission’s net‑billing framework, which allows consumers to become prosumer by both producing and consuming power. Solar solutions that meet regulatory standards can now feed into the utility network, creating a more integrated system.

She emphasised that Nigeria’s energy problem cannot be solved by a single technology or approach, and that solar home systems also have a place in communities where mini‑grids are not the most suitable option.

At Solar, which develops both mini‑grids and solar home systems, she said solutions are designed around each community’s specific economic drivers and productive‑use needs.

She further commended the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) for setting a mission to provide energy assets to 17.5 million Nigerians, insisting that such an ambitious target can only be achieved through collaboration.

“ It will require multiple organisations and segments of the sector working in different capacities, partnering, bringing in finance and sustaining the right conversations.”

Chief Executive Officer of Transcorp Energy Limited, Christopher Ezeafuluke, said the Electricity Act has opened the pathway for reform in the sector.

He explained that, beyond the former national regulator, new state‑level regulators have emerged and have begun to mandate that a percentage of distribution companies’ energy must come from renewable sources, in line with the Act.

However, he acknowledged that implementation has been slower than many stakeholders expected, due to several factors on the ground.

Ezeafuluke said he is nevertheless encouraged by the current direction of the market, which he believes is increasingly driven by demand rather than regulation alone.

He argued that the Electricity Act laid the foundation, but the urgent push for renewable energy now comes from businesses and consumers seeking better access and reliability.

According to him, new rules and business models are helping the country move away from years of frustration with sole reliance on the national grid, forcing utilities to engage more and open up to partnerships.

Drawing on his experience running a utility, he recalled that distribution companies once faced criticism when they insisted some areas were not commercially viable to serve, even though that was the reality.

He said the sector has now come to terms with the fact that current utilities cannot cover the entire Nigerian space, and that this realism is driving alternative solutions such as what some have called the solarisation of Nigeria.

In his view, these solutions all converge on a single critical issue, such as access to electricity, which he described as the key factor for economic growth, empowerment and Nigeria’s emergence as a regional power.

Associate Vice President, Commercial, at Orlando Clean Energy, Engr Godwin Onwubolu, said it is important to go to the root of the problem when examining how commercial and industrial (C&I) customers interact with the grid.

He explained that C&I customers prioritise four things: the availability of power, the reliability of that availability, the quality of the power supplied and its cost. Many large C&I users operate continuous processes and three‑phase systems, which makes them particularly sensitive to any disruption or deterioration in power quality.

Onwubolu observed that the current pricing regime is still struggling to be truly cost‑reflective, in part because tariffs carry embedded technical and commercial losses that should ideally be avoided. As a result, many C&I customers are leaving the grid for alternative solutions.

He said they do so because power is often not available in sufficient quantity, it is not reliably available, and when it is available, it may not meet the required quality or be affordable for certain segments. He described this as a clear problem for big utilities, but one that is ultimately surmountable.

Looking ahead, Onwubolu said he envisions a future in which micro‑grids built and operated by C&I customers begin to coalesce into interconnected systems, supported by recent changes in electricity legislation.

Over time, he believes these interconnected micro‑grids will reinforce the main utilities by improving overall availability through their integration.

In the short term, however, he warned that significant investment is needed by utilities to curb energy theft, cut technical and commercial losses and strengthen grid infrastructure.

He stressed that legislation enabling interconnection is not enough on its own, the country must also be technologically and infrastructurally ready, with sufficient operational and execution capacity to manage a more complex, interconnected grid.

Managing Director of WATT Renewable, Oluwole Eweje, addressed the question of whether competitors in the power space can become collaborators.

He argued that interconnected mini‑grids are likely to be a major feature of Nigeria’s energy landscape in the future, and that this reality makes collaboration unavoidable.

Eweje echoed earlier comments that utilities will remain the backbone of energy infrastructure for a long time, but said private companies and mini‑grid operators must work alongside that core, not against it.

He noted that Nigeria is already beginning to see examples of such collaboration, including the first interconnected mini‑grid, which he believes points the way forward.

According to him, real progress will depend on finding practical models through which utilities, private firms and mini‑grid operators can coalesce and work together.