A new survey conducted by Power for All a non-governmental organization focused on promoting renewable energy has revealed Nigeria’s Distributed Renewable Energy (DRE) would have created over 70,000 jobs in four years’ time- 2023.
The study titled Powering Jobs Census 2019: The Energy Access Workforce, revealed ambitious mini-grid plans in Nigeria mean that by 2022-2023, mini-grids could account for 96percent of the 52,000 anticipated direct, formal DRE jobs while another 24,000 jobs can also be created through direct or informal sectors.
“These estimates are speculative and depend on actual growth of the various DRE technology markets, but show that the nature of the DRE workforce will likely evolve over time,” researchers at Power for All said.
Currently, the DRE sector in Nigeria has created 15,000 productive use jobs, and that is expected to grow as the mini-grid sector industry,” the survey released by Power for All recently in Abuja said.
The survey also stated that between 2017 and 2018, the country’s DRE market created 4,000 news jobs, and compared it to about 10,000 jobs her gas, electricity and air conditioning sectors created in the same period.
Dr. Rebekah Shirley, who is Power for All Chief Research Officer and census lead researcher, stated in the statement that, “Access to electricity means access to jobs.”
“The Powering Jobs census offers strong evidence of the important link between energy access and employment in countries where rural joblessness is at record highs,” Shirley, further said.
Shirley further noted that policy-makers, donors and the private sector have an opportunity to increase support for decentralized renewables and build a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workforce for the energy infrastructure of the future.
The survey by power for all discovered that Nigeria’s decentralized renewables were a significant employer of people, that is, relative to its penetration level in the market, the sector has already grown an impressive direct employee base.
“Nigeria survey results show that the country’s DRE direct, formal workforce may grow 13 times between 2017-18 and 2022-23 if the mini-grid market continues to expand at a rapid pace,” said the Power for All in its findings.
It added, “In 2017-18, the DRE sector provided about 4,000 jobs (compared to the gas, electricity and air conditioning sector, which employed about 10,000 in the same year), most of which are from standalone and grid-tied Commercial and Industrial (C&I) projects.
According to the survey, the DRE sector has a significant employment impact on Nigeria’s informal sector as well.
“In 2017-18, the DRE sector provided about 9,000 informal jobs. The number of informal jobs would more than double in the next five years, reaching 24,000 informal jobs by 2022-23,” the survey result noted.
Further, it said the sector had a jobs multiplier character, noting that in addition to direct, formal employment, the sector also accounts for up to 3–4 times as many jobs created through the productive use of energy particularly in rural and peri-urban communities being electrified for the first time.
As well as employing a highly-skilled, middle-income workforce, the survey stated that the DRE companies delivering electricity access have created skilled, middle-income jobs which also have longer employee retention than utility-scale power.
Similarly, the survey explained that there is a growing shortage of job-ready talent to finance, develop, install, operate and market in the sector.
It equally stated that responses from 50 companies in Nigeria across the DRE sector, including many major companies in the sector representing a large market share were captured in the research.
