Report: Nigeria’s renewable energy capacity increased to 2,153 MW in 2020 — 10th in Africa

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) says that Nigeria’s renewable energy capacity was 2,153 megawatts (MW) in 2020.

The figure is a 0.02 percent increase from 2,152 MW in 2019 — placing the country at the tenth position in Africa.

This is according to its latest statistical report released recently.

According to IRENA, this figure represents a 16 percent meagre of total energy sources in Nigeria as non-renewable energy capacity was 11,002MW, representing 84% energy capacity.

According to the report, the total energy capacity culminated in 13,154MW in the previous year.

For renewable energy sources, signifying Nigeria’s highest renewable energy capacity, hydropower amounted to 2,111 MW, unchanged since 2015. 

However, the report said it is estimated that the total exploitable potential of hydropower is about 14,120 MW.

Following closely behind in terms of renewable energy capacity is solar with 28MW, representing a 1.7 percent increase from 2019.

Wind, which was the lowest capacity, culminated in 3 MW, static since 2014; bioenergy was 10 MW, unchanged since 2016, while geothermal capacity was non-existent in Nigeria.

The organisation said that the world had 2.8 million MW renewable energy capacity in 2020 — with Africa’s capacity low at 53,685 MW.

South Africa with 9,639MW, Egypt with 5,980MW, and Ethiopia with 4,713MW came out as the three top renewable energy capacities.

China had the most renewable energy capacity in the world, with more than 35 percent of total world capacity at 254,355MW.

According to the report, although there was a 4.5 percent drop in global energy demand in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, renewable energy technologies made remarkable progress.