SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Despite several government interventions to promote on-grid renewable energy (RE) investments for nearly two decades, there is still no on-grid RE plant in Nigeria. This thesis explains why. It starts by establishing that the projected reduction in global RE prices alone will not be enough to drive on-grid RE investments and that government intervention is required, especially as on-grid RE offers an important climate change mitigation option for the country. Critically, the thesis also provides a nuanced perspective to the argument in the literature that suggests that energy transition in natural resource-rich economies is inhibited by the dichotomy between a resistive hydrocarbon-intense regime and an emerging RE niche. This thesis argues that this dichotomy is not the key constraint to adoption of on-grid RE in Nigeria. Indeed, there is little evidence for such a dichotomy at present, and it is an open question whether or not the dichotomy will emerge as a constraint to adoption of on-grid RE in Nigeria in the future. Instead, this thesis argues that there are wider industrial organisational issues that constrain all generation investments on the grid in Nigeria, including on-grid RE investments – and these constraints are sustained by certain political features commonly observed in rentier states like Nigeria. Recognising that rentier states like Nigeria are not perpetually bound to inefficient markets, this thesis also examines the political economic conditions necessary for change that enables the government to successfully promote on-grid RE investments in Nigeria. Finally, the thesis recognises the power of ideas to overcome market constraints within political restraints and proposes a policy option to successfully promote on-grid RE investments in Nigeria.