By Isqil Najim,
Experts at the Nigeria Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, NIEEE, on Wednesday canvassed distributed mini grids as the fastest route to ending Nigeria’s energy crisis, as the Minister of Power reaffirmed the Federal Government’s power sector reforms and charged engineers to develop indigenous solutions to the country’s energy challenges.
The event, the institute’s 16th Distinguished Electrical and Electronics Engineering Award Lecture, was organised in honour of Engr Ademola Agoro for his contributions to the power sector.
The event drew captains of industry, government officials and members of the engineering profession, and centred on a lecture titled “Optimize Design and Interconnectivity Strategy for Distributed Generation in Multi Community Mini Grids with Adaptive Grid Integration Pathways in Sub Saharan Africa,” delivered by Agoro himself.
The Honourable Minister of Power, Chief Joseph Tegbe, represented by Engineer Owolabi Sunday Adio, Director of Renewable and Rural Power Asset Development Department, said engineering remains the backbone of every industrialised nation, and that the quality of a country’s infrastructure, manufacturing capacity and technological advancement is directly linked to the strength of its engineering profession.
“Reliable electric supply is the foundation of economic growth, industrial development, job creation, improved healthcare, quality education, food security and digital transformation,” the Minister said.
He said that under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Renewed Hope Agenda, the Federal Government remains committed to transforming the electricity value chain through strategic investments, policy reforms, private sector participation and infrastructure expansion.
He listed ongoing reforms by the Ministry of Power to include the expansion of transmission capacity through construction of new 330 kV and 132 kV lines and substations, strengthening of the national grid for reliability and resilience,
Others are: acceleration of grid modernisation through digital and smart grid solutions, promotion of renewable energy integration in line with the Energy Transition Plan, and encouragement of local manufacturing and technology transfer within the power sector.
“These initiatives are already yielding positive outcomes, but we acknowledge that much work still lies ahead of us,” he added.
Speaking further, the lecture, the Minister said the solution for future electricity generation can no longer rely solely on large central power generation. He cited long gestation periods, dispatch issues and technical losses associated with that model.
He described distributed generation through mini grids as a transformative solution for resolving grid stability and bridging the last mile energy gap, explaining that integrating decentralised renewable resources directly with existing distribution networks allows communities to generate, share and balance power alongside the main grid.
He charged the engineers to continue developing indigenous solutions that address the country’s unique energy challenges, deepen research, encourage collaboration between academia, professional bodies and industry, embrace emerging technology, and prioritise local content in engineering design, manufacturing, operation and maintenance.
“Government alone cannot deliver the power sector transformation that Nigerians desire,” he said, stressing that success requires strong partnerships among government institutions, professional bodies, development partners, private investors, academia and engineers.
Charging young electrical engineers to embrace continuous learning, innovation, ethical practice and professionalism, he said the future of Nigeria’s electricity industry rests significantly in their hands, adding that their creativity and technical competence will determine how quickly Nigeria achieves universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy.
He congratulated Agoro on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Power and the Federal Government, describing his career as one that exemplifies professionalism, innovation, integrity and service.
Delivering the lecture, Agoro, who is Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Prodigy Global Services Limited, a firm he has led since 2013 and grown into one of Nigeria’s leading engineering, renewable energy and metering solution companies with over 150 engineers and technical professionals under his leadership, said the work presented was born out of research combining his doctoral studies at De Montfort University in the United Kingdom and years of practical field experience in Nigeria.
He explained that the traditional approach of generating, transmitting and then distributing power has proven economically burdensome for the subsahara African region, given the high cost of importing transmission infrastructure.
While government and donor agencies have deployed numerous mini grids across Nigeria, he said many of them lack the economic resilience and technical capacity to handle growing loads and are often underutilised due to improper sizing.
Agoro, who served two consecutive terms as Vice President of the Nigerian Society of Engineers in 2023 and 2024 and chaired the Nigerian Electricity Supply and Installation Standards Review Panel representing the NSE, said mini grids should not be designed or viewed as isolated points of basic power supply, but as tools that can drive local economic and social development.
He cited the example of a 100 kilowatt mini grid in a rural community, such as a village in Ikorodu, that could power homes while also running a battery swapping station for tricycles, electric vehicles and motorcycles, with the same swappable batteries doubling as household inverter storage at night.
On interconnectivity, he said mini grids do not need to be linked only to the national grid. Using simulation tools such as OpenDSS and Python, he demonstrated how neighbouring mini grids with different generation and storage capacities could be interlinked to share loads and balance frequencies where the distance between communities is shorter than the distance to national infrastructure, at a fraction of the cost of building new high voltage transmission lines.
He raised concern over the absence of standardisation and reliable data in the sector, pointing out that electrical materials bought in markets such as Alaba often come without proper technical specifications, and that most residential buildings in Nigeria lack proper architectural or electrical drawings, leading to installations done without basic safety measures such as circuit breakers.
Agoro said his company now custom builds Internet of Things gateways with battery backups and uses Machine to Machine SIM cards, rather than conventional telecom SIMs, to maintain connectivity on Nigeria’s unstable distribution infrastructure. He disclosed that his team locally fabricates solar mounting structures using ordinary galvanised pipes, entirely through young Nigerian engineers.
“The only people who can truly solve Nigeria’s problems are Nigerians.”
According to him, the design assumptions imported from abroad often fail to capture the realities of Nigeria’s local operating environment, and called for deep collaboration between academia and field practitioners to close that gap.
He also spoke on the need for a smarter distribution network, noting that national discourse on power challenges is almost entirely obsessed with the transmission grid while the distribution grid receives little attention.
“Without a smart distribution grid, we cannot achieve concepts like net billing or peer to peer energy sharing,” he said.
Nigeria has invested heavily in distributed generation such as solar systems but urgently needs professionals to help government build a smart, stable and reliable distribution network using sensors, IoT gateways and frequency monitoring technology.
Agoro called on government, academic institutions and professional bodies to shift focus toward distributed generation rather than relying solely on traditional central generation, transmission and distribution models.
He urged stakeholders to develop indigenous innovations suited to Nigeria’s realities, including converting the thousands of independent generators scattered across the country into a Virtual Power Plant network through smart metering and net billing.
He further called for the integration of artificial intelligence, blockchain and advanced IoT into the country’s power architecture, stronger enforcement of standards such as those developed under the Nigerian Electricity Supply and Installation Standards review panel, and closer collaboration between academia and industry to equip the next generation of engineers with practical skills.
“Government alone cannot shoulder the transformation of the power sector,” he said.
Earlier in his address, the president of NIEEE, Dr Felix A. Adegboye, described the honour conferred on Agoro as one reserved strictly for engineers who have shown peerless technical expertise, unwavering ethical standards and a lifetime of impactful contribution to the profession.
He said Agoro’s research and practical work in distributed energy resources had earned him a place as a reference standard for the next generation of African engineers.