A roadmap for energy transition strategic planning and governance: a case study of Nigeria's grid-based renewable electricity sector.

The global drive for energy transition has resulted in Nigeria formulating energy policies to incorporate about 30% of new renewable energy sources into the planned 30GW of electricity generation by 2030. This is principally because deploying renewable energy on the national grid provides succour to the complex dual energy issues of access and poverty currently experienced in Nigeria, promoting the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and enabling Nigeria to fulfil the Paris Agreement's commitments. However, from the literature, there has not been new grid-based renewable energy development in the country despite the Renewable Energy Master Plan, which initiated the pursuit of novel renewable energy (solar and wind) development, including other policies and policy mechanisms formulated to encourage the grid-based transition. Moreover, the ineffectiveness of the governance and the decision-making frameworks for addressing the challenges of the electricity sector, especially the stakeholders' involvement, is a debate in the literature and topical among experts and the academia. Transition theories have been widely applied to navigate these challenges, but these have not been developed in the context of developing countries with energy challenges and institutions that are not matured. This study contributes to transition studies by fusing accountability and transparency concepts and applying these to the context of a developing country, which is identified in the literature as limited. Therefore, this research aims to assess the renewable energy planning process and governance for sustainable development and recommend a roadmap model for implementing strategies on grid-based renewable energy electricity generation in Nigeria. To resolve these issues, the study adopts a socio-technical transition perspective, underpinned by the Multi-Level Perspective and the Transition Management Framework, and supported by the concepts of accountability and transparency. An interpretivist paradigm and a case study strategy were employed with a qualitative approach, which was analysed inductively. The research involved thirty-one semi-structured interviews of energy and non-energy actors and experts, and a review of the extant academic literature from the energy industry and other sources of information. Additionally, thematic analysis through NVivo Software was used for data analysis. The findings from the study have implications for policymakers and planners in developing a governance framework to promote the transformation of energy systems to cleaner technologies in developing nations. This study argues that there is a need to protect renewable energy niche innovation by providing an enabling environment for the growth and maturity of the technology. Also, the findings show that socio-technical landscape pressures from electricity demand on the existing regime and the grid system's multifaceted challenges have created niche development opportunities. However, the strong incumbent socio-technical regime, the system's inefficiency, conflicting multiple actors' interests and the government's petroleum subsidies and policies reinforce the incumbent regime (i.e. technology lock-in). Furthermore, the transition needs to be adequately managed by a designated agency to foster transition, transparency and accountability, which was found to be sub-optimal, as there is no dedicated agency handling grid-based renewable energy implementation. A conceptual framework was developed from the study's findings and a roadmap model was created for implementing strategies for grid-based renewable energy electricity generation as a guide for planners and policymakers. This study also provides a sound basis for other nations with similar technological, economic, cultural, socio-technical and political concerns to Nigeria.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

PhD

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Robert Gordon University

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Adedokun, Racheal Folake

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• P. Strachan and A. Singh

• Renewable energy
• Electricity networks
• Electricity grids
• Energy policy
• Energy strategy
• Strategic planning
• Energy transition
• Governance
• Nigeria

Language dc:language

en

Identifier

oai:rgu-repository.worktribe.com:2445678
https://doi.org/10.48526/rgu-wt-2445678

Author Identifier

0000-0001-7548-7763

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:rgu-repository.worktribe.com:2445678