“Solar Killed the Generator Star” Project

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With less than 5GW of capacity on the grid, Nigeria is experiencing a substandard delivery of energy which is constraining growth and development. In parallel, around 25 million small fuel powered generators of less than 2 kWp are providing for a back-up energy access infrastructure. This represents the equivalent of at least 25GW of 100% fossil fuel based energy infrastructure.

Around 100 million liters of fuel are needed daily to run Nigeria’s generators. The associated emissions are around 85 million tons of CO2 a year. Generators are not a satisfactory solution to Nigeria’s energy crisis. They are, however, currently the only available technology to ensure energy access when the grid is down.

One Possible Solution: The Solar Generator

The devices and appliances typically powered by small generators can technically of course be powered by a solar system. However, no suitable solar substitute has scaled in the Nigerian market yet – despite the obvious demand and the huge potential for noise, fume and CO2 emissions reduction.

This is why the Access to Energy Institute (A2EI) has decided to dedicate its core resources to work on providing a standalone solar generator to substitute the “betta pass my neighbor” traditional fuel generator within the next two years. We call the project “Solar Killed the Generator Star” and have kickstarted it in Nigeria in April 2019.

We firmly believe the A2EI can develop a solar generator that:
• technically does what a traditional fuel generator does,
• avoids noise, fumes and CO2 emissions, and
• is affordable.

Data Monitoring and Open Source Availability

As a not-for-profit organization, the A2EI strives to share all the information it is gathering with like-minded innovators (be they commercial players or not) in the offgrid solar sector. We explicitly invite partners interested in how to reduce the fossil fuel footprint in the energy access sector in Nigeria to join our efforts.

In a first step, the A2EI has developed special data loggers that can be plugged onto a generator or the grid and that will generate real time 24/7 data series on grid availability, generator usage patterns, consumption, CO2 emissions and real costs. About 150 of these data loggers have already been installed in Nigeria. In addition to smart meters, we have installed air quality monitoring devices that log data on CO, CO2, NO2, SO2, VOC, PM 2.5 etc, and meters measuring the noise pollution emanating from the generators.

To our knowledge, this breadth of data has never been gathered nor made available to interested parties. We believe this is one of the reasons why no suitable solution to generator replacement has been made available to date.

In parallel to gathering “technical” data, we are currently interviewing hundreds of households and shop owners that are using a generator regarding their usage patterns and costs etc. The data will be made available through the website of the Access to Energy Institute (www.a2ei.org/data). We hope this will stimulate not only the discussion around solar as the right technology to replace fuel generators, but also trigger and foster the much-needed hardware and prototyping innovation necessary to develop the right solar substitution generator.

If you are interested in getting access to the data gathered on the usage of generators in Nigeria, please register with your email here.