The Managing Director of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), Dr. Abba Aliyu, says the agency’s current mini-grid deployments is designed to bypass the systemic flaws that have historically weakened Nigeria’s national grid.
He said that the agency is now deploying mini-grids directly within isolated communities to provide completely independent electricity.
In a recent interview, Dr Aliyu noted that the agency has internalized lessons from the national grid failures.
According to him, the agency ensures that every mini-grid installation includes its own dedicated distribution network and 100 percent metering.
“We’ve learned from the mistakes of the main grid, so every mini-grid we deploy includes a distribution network, 100% metering, and a SCADA system that allows performance to be monitored via a phone.
“In peri-urban communities with existing distribution networks but unreliable power, we bring in our generation plant. We work with DISCOs through service-level agreements, where we provide solar power during the day and the DISCOs are expected to provide power at night. If the DISCO fails to provide power, our battery storage system kicks in. We are also currently deploying 50 interconnected mini-grids that will inject 280 megawatts of reliable supply into the grid,” he explained.
By combining decentralized generation with real-time digital oversight and redundant storage systems, he said REA aims to create a resilient energy architecture that is no longer vulnerable to the cascading failures seen in traditional centralized models.
