Facilitating the Implementation of Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems (HRES) in Nigeria through Incentive Policies

Energy policies are developed to drive the energy sector objectives and targets by countries or regions. As the global push for energy transition to carbon-neutral energy sources continues, developing countries such as Nigeria need to formulate incentive policies to drive the growth and increase the share of hybrid renewable energy systems (HRES). Nigeria experiences diverse energy challenges such as inadequate power supply with only about 13 GW of installed capacity to serve over 200 million people. The average per capita electricity consumption in the country in 2019 stood at 133 kWh. Therefore, for Nigeria, HRES is needed not just for energy transition but more importantly to bridge the huge electricity demand-supply gap. There are existing policies for the energy sector of the country such as the National Energy Policy and the National Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Policy, but these policies have failed to achieve their key objectives hence the need for a review with a view to developing a policy that will incentivize renewable energy in the country. Therefore, this research examines the power situation in Nigeria and causes of failure of existing energy policies to drive the needed growth in renewable energy in the country and recommends how incentive policies can be developed and implemented to promote HRES in Nigeria. Incentives such as feed in tariffs, net-metering schemes amongst others have proven to stimulate the growth of renewable energy in some countries and can be adapted in Nigeria.