Nigeria's Solar Resources and Potentials

Nigeria is geographically very well situated with regards to solar resources which are measured by the expected levels of Solar Irradiation over the year. Some sections of the country have some of the best solar irradiation levels possible. This is particularly true for the sections of the country in the Sahel Belt in the far North of the country with cities such as Kano, Maiduguri, Katsina, Zaria, Sokoto and Birnin, Bauchi, Kebbi, Kaduna as highlighted in the Nigeria Solar Irradiation map diagram from Solar GIS below.

Other southern Nigerian Cities such as Ibadan, Enugu, Benin, Lagos and Enugu even show comparably higher irradiation levels than cities in countries sin Europe who have reached high levels of deployment of solar PV such as Germany and France. Whilst the lowest irradiation levels in Nigeria in cities such as Port-Harcourt, which traditionally have higher cloud cover over the year compare with those In the countries mentioned.

This makes Solar Power a very critical and currently underutilized component of the national energy supply mix in Nigeria which the government in partnership with companies such as Dantata Solar is working hard to put in place.

 The diagram above shows the high irradiation levels in Nigeria. It also contains a map of Africa which shows the very conducive conditions for Solar PV in Nigeria, even in comparison with most other African countries as shown in the diagram below.