Communities of Practice as driver of a bottom-up energy transition in Nigeria

The overall objective of the project was to achieve a climate-friendly energy supply through decentralized renewable energy (DRE) in Nigeria by 2030. In order to achieve this, civil society must play a driving role. The project therefore aimed to create exemplary civil society nuclei ("Communities of Practice") and empowered them to plan and implement DRE projects (local level). Based on this, the project has been working transdisciplinary on improving the political framework for local decentralized RE projects (national level). Finally, the establishment of a monitoring and dissemination platform has served to verify the impact of local projects and allowed extrapolation in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa (regional level). In this way, civil society has been empowered to implement DRE independently and made (and will make) a significant contribution to the achievement of climate change mitigation goals.

Project data

Countries: Nigeria
IKI funding: 645,730.39 €
Duration: 11/2021 till 12/2024
Status: completed
Implementing organisation: Reiner Lemoine Institut gGmbH
Implementing Partner: Clean Technology Hub
Online: https://reiner-lemoine-institut.de/project-cp-nigeria/

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State of implementation/results

Project completed.
Out of ten visited communities in five different geopolitical zones of Nigeria, five "Communities of Practice" were selected for further project activities by the implementing partner.
The following gives a list of communities selected as “Community of Practice”: Ebute Ipare in Ondo State; Ezere in Enugu State; Usungwe in Kogi State; Eugbuniwe, Okpanam in Delta State; Unguwar Kure in Kano State.
Most of the communities have few public institutions, which usually include a primary school, a basic health center and places of worship. Some communities host a small market and the population is mainly engaged in farming or fishing. The population sizes range between an estimated 500 up to 1000 households for the biggest community, with most parts of the communities having no access to electricity at all due to either defunct or non-existing energy infrastructure. Diesel generators or battery charging stations are operated to provide few power services.
Quantitative surveys were conducted in each of the communities to gain a good understanding of the socio-economic and cultural situation and to derive electricity demand estimations. The project team surveyed households, enterprises, public institutions and health centers. They also conducted qualitative interviews with major stakeholders such as the village chiefs and associations.
The communities mentioned that main challenges for community driven projects are the lack of access to finance and complicated policy regulations.
The project team has developed a toolbox (accessible under community-minigrid.ng) that enables communities to conduct their own pre-feasibility studies for an electrification project: The toolbox contains demand estimation, supply optimization, recommendations for suitable business models and financial calculations throughout the project lifetime. The users can use the tool output in the form of a word document to address relevant stakeholders and project developers to drive implementation of mini-grid projects in their communities.
Additionally, a policy brief will be published describing legal barriers to community-centric mini-grids, and detailing opportunities as well as existing potential. Talks are being conducted with project developers, financing institutions and other potential implementing partners willing to continue mini-grid implementation after finalization of the project.

Latest Update:
02/2025