Supporting renewable sources of energy at universities in Nigeria
Project description
Title: Scaling up University Electrification in Nigeria
Commisioned by: Federal Foreign Office
Country: Nigeria
Overall term: 2017 to 2020
Context
Nigeria’s electricity supply lacks the capacity to meet the demands of a rapidly growing population and the energy requirements of Nigerian institutions and industry. A daily average of 4,000 megawatts (MW) were generated and transmitted through the power grid in 2018. Overall, however, only 25 per cent of the electricity generated reaches the end consumer, due to high losses in the transmission and distribution network.
The poor power supply also has a serious impact on Nigeria’s educational establishments: schools and universities often lack the electricity to provide lessons without disruption. In the past, some universities have had to close due to power shortages.
The use of decentralised, modern energy services can make a significant contribution towards increasing the electrification rate in Nigeria. However, the actors only have limited implementation capacity. Furthermore, knowledge about the potential of renewable energies is not sufficiently widespread in Nigeria and there is an overall lack of skilled workers in the field of solar technologies.
Objective
Nigerian universities use solar power to produce electricity. Course content on solar technologies is included in the syllabus of their engineering programmes.
Approach
For the implementation of the project, an integrated expert will be sent to the University of Ibadan. She or he will be active in two areas of intervention:
- Scaling up university electrification
The Nigerian-German Energy Partnership (NGEP) has developed an economically sustainable approach to the electrification of Nigerian universities through solar power. NGEP is part of the bilateral commission between Nigeria and Germany coordinated by the German Federal Foreign Office. This approach ensures access to
clean, affordable electricity while allowing a mix of private investment and public funding. University of Ibadan is one of the pilot projects. From there, the integrated expert is to identify further Nigerian universities at which the solar electrification approach can be applied and to develop a viable business model.
2. Professionalising teaching and training in the solar sector
Private sector investment is being used to fund the development of a solar training centre at University of Ibadan. The centre offers training courses for internal and external students. In addition, the integrated expert will develop teaching approaches on how solar content can be embedded in engineering courses.