Nigeria is the largest economy in sub-Saharan Africa, but limitations in the power sector constrain economic development. Frequent electricity outages have a serious impact on the economy. The average firm in Nigeria claims outage related losses equivalent to more than 4% of sales and no peer country experiences such severe business losses related to the power supply. The residential sector (households and commerce) accounts for most of Nigeria’s final energy consumption with a share of about 78%, followed by industrial use with about 9% and the rapidly expanding transport sector with 7.5%. According to the World Bank’s projection, electricity demand is to grow by a factor of over 5 until 2035 up to almost 530 TWh. This trend will add to the already existing challenges in the energy sector.
The government of Nigeria has therefore prioritized energy generation, transmission and consumption efficiency as key actions in its National Determined Contributions (NDCs) from 2015. However, to date, Nigeria’s transition to energy efficiency and conservation is mainly hindered by the complexity of introducing energy sector reforms across the key sectors industry, commerce and transport in which current activities are highly fragmented. This technical assistance will aim at developing a harmonized energy efficiency and conservation act leading to the adoption and implementation of energy efficient technologies and practices in the industrial, and household sectors. It will also set up a regulatory framework to monitor and report on activities towards compliance of the regulations. A certification and training curriculum as well as a training the trainers programme will contribute to an effective auditing and reporting.