IN-PERSON Lisbon Livable Cities. Section A

Abstract

Globally, governments play pivotal role in the deployment and integration of renewable energy on national power grid to reduce greenhouse gases and tackle climate change. Renewable energy technologies boost urban system resilience and sustainability to achieve net zero. However, integrating renewable energy on the grid system is a tall order especially for developing nations without the capacity in these technologies necessitating policy support mechanism. While a country like Nigeria has set targets and included support mechanisms in its Policy document (NREEEP) to drive incorporation of new renewable energy technologies specifically solar and wind on her gas dominated national power grid system, penetration remains an issue therefore impeding urban resilience. Hence, it is essential to understand how policy support mechanisms could facilitate this deployment. Previous studies have explored these issues from various lenses; however, the support mechanism remains underexplored. This study focusses on assessing the effectiveness of the support mechanisms deployed in a developing country’s context using Nigeria as a case-study through a semi-structured interview with 31 key players in the Nigerian power sector. The interviews were analysed using thematic content analysis to understand which support mechanism has more prominence and understand their effectiveness. Findings suggests operationalising support mechanisms, like feed-in-tariff and capital subsidy, have been challenging but are integral to accelerating transitions. Also, there is a need for consideration of new mechanism such as green certificate. Planning and policy recommendations are presented and can serve as foundation for countries with similar and not fully liberalised national grid structure as Nigeria.