The use of digital solutions has proven to be a fundamental tool to accelerate electrification initiatives. An illustrative case is Nigeria, where, within the framework of the Nigeria Electrification Project (NEP), implemented by the Nigerian Rural Electrification Agency (REA), two initiatives for fostering private sector investment in mini-grids were developed: A Minimum Subsidy Tender and a Performance Based Grant (PBG) facility. The company Odyssey Energy Solutions supports these processes with Big Data solutions.

 

The Problem: Both initiatives take place simultaneously at a national scale, which requires REA to process large amounts of data. In the Minimum Subsidy Tender the REA pre-selects mini-grid sites for private sector bidders to compete on the basis of lowest subsidy and merits of their business plan to build, own and operate mini-grids. The pre-selection of the mini-grid sites requires the assessment of thousands of households in many communities at the same time, while evaluating the bids received through a comparative analysis of the bidders' proposals. On the other hand, the PBG facility provides grants to developers; under this approach, the developers select the mini-grid sites and grants are disbursed on a first-come, first-served basis. Once granted, the REA needs to evaluate millions of connections, ensuring that customers have been connected to reliable power.

 

The Solution: Odyssey developed a central software platform that manages all the project’s data processing requirements, enabling the sector’s first large-scale, results-based financing scheme by processing and analysing billions of data points across mobile applications, feeds from smart meters and solar home system platforms. 

 

A data set on off-grid communities was created by collecting geo-tagged surveys of energy consumers, indicating the availability of power, energy use patterns and willingness to pay, among other parameters. Data is then processed through Odyssey’s feasibility analytics platform, performing the modelling required for the viability assessment of each site, allowing REA to obtain feasibility profiles for hundreds of sites at once. These subsets are presented to the bidders, enabling them to use the survey data for their proposals. REA is also able to simultaneously conduct a comparative analysis of each proposal. 

 

For evaluation of PBG grants, smart metering technologies are used to verify customer connections through remote monitoring, integrating smart meter application programming interfaces (APIs) to collect data on customer consumption and payments, enabling the platform to confirm if a customer is receiving power at specified reliability levels, reducing the need for in-person site verification. 

 

Lessons Learned: Tailoring Big Data solutions to the mini-grid electrification process has proven successful in saving time and resources on tasks that could not have been achieved using traditional manual methods and allowing for a fast and transparent deployment of electrification programmes taking place at a national scale. 

 

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