EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF RURAL ELECTRIFICATION AND ENERGY POVERTY IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The last two decades have witnessed significant efforts in an attempt to boost access to rural electrification in Nigeria with the establishment of Rural Electrification Agency (REA) and the Rural Electrification Strategy and Implementation Plan. Despite these initiatives, the rural communities in Nigeria are still characterised by inadequate access to electricity thereby aggravating energy poverty. There is a dearth of studies on the impact of rural electrification on energy poverty in Nigeria. This study therefore was designed to examine the determinants of energy poverty in rural communities, as well as the impact of rural electrification on energy poverty in the on-grid and off-grid rural communities.

Adopting the fuel stacking framework, a random sampling technique was employed to select 3,600 households from 72 rural communities equally distributed into on-grid and off-grid locations in a state in each of the six geopolitical zones: Abia (S/E), Akwa Ibom (S/S), Kaduna (N/W), Kwara (N/C), Oyo (S/W) and Yobe (N/E). Structured questionnaire was used to collect information which includes marital status, level of education, gender, expenditure (education, transportation, and food) and energy choice. Two indices of energy poverty, Energy Inconvenience Index (EII) and Multidimensional Energy Poverty Index (MEPI), were computed. The EII was employed to measure the level of energy poverty in the sampled areas before the rural electrification intervention (off-grid locations), while the MEPI computed the level of energy poverty after rural electrification intervention. The post-intervention energy poverty index for the off-grid location was compared with energy poverty in the on-grid locations. The logit regression estimation technique was employed to analyse the determinants of energy poverty in the on-grid and off-grid locations at

Male household heads were 73.6% and 74.5% in on-grid and off-grid communities respectively. Primary education level was 69.6% and 42.6% for the on-grid and off-grid communities respectively. Firewood (50.0%) dominated the energy choice in the off-grid communities, while charcoal (58.7%) was the preferred energy choice in the on-grid communities. The average energy poverty for the off-grid was 0.370 compared with the threshold level of energy poverty index of 0.377 for EII. A total of 65.0% of the respondents in the off-grid locations had EII higher than the threshold, implying high energy poverty. The computed MEPI of 0.63 for the off-grid and 0.50 for on-grid indicated that energy poverty is prevalent in the off-grid communities. Being married ( =-0.599), expenditure on education ( =0.100), food ( =0.001) and transportation ( =0.001) were the significant determinants of energy poverty in the off-grid communities. Energy poverty was found to be decreasing for holders of higher levels of education ( =-0.862), while only expenditure on education ( =0.100) and food ( =0.001) were found to be significant determinants of energy poverty in the on-grid communities. Energy poverty was found to be decreasing for holders of higher levels of education ( =-0.680). The level of awareness ( =-0.040) and access ( =-0.120) reduces energy poverty after rural electrification intervention compared with the pre-intervention period.

There was high rate of energy poverty in the on-grid and off-grid sampled rural communities in Nigeria. It is imperative to adopt the use of renewable energy technologies and also strengthening the capacity of institutions responsible for rural electrification.

Keywords: Rural Electrification, Off-grid and On-grid communities, Energy poverty in Nigeria. Word count: 498