STORY: For Shakirah Fatomide, her phone was the only source of light when one of Nigeria’s power outages happened.
“If there’s a blackout, I use my phone’s flashlight, so I make sure my phone is charged in the office.”
Nigeria is a country beset by challenges: economic growth, cost of living, and energy.
And that means the answers are in short supply.
Although Nigeria has the capacity to generate about 13,000 megawatts of electricity, its grid is stretched enough to supply a third of it.
This means that businesses and households are forced to use expensive fuel generators.
Abba Abubakar-Aliyu heads the Rural Electrification Agency, which is tasked with increasing access to power to underserved communities.
But the sharp decline in the naira is taking a toll.
“Most of the equipment we use to deploy these mini-grids is imported and imported is a dollar, so it positively affects the cost of our projects.”
To limit the rising costs, the agency enters into contracts for solar panel production.
However, Nigeria is in the grip of its worst cost of living crisis in a generation.
Inflation has been rising, depressing wages in addition to weakening the economy.
At Auxano Solar, demand for its products has fallen so much that the company has cut half of its imports from China.
Chuks Umezulora is the founder of this company.
“Our economy has always not been doing well, so it means that people’s income was not growing, so the decline was higher than people’s income and all that, so what it means is that most of the income of Nigerians is low. “
Umezulora added that things can get better if banks are open to financing solar.
But for now, many Nigerians like Shakira will need to keep their phones charged – or face going about their daily business in the dark.