Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110983

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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/rser

Demonstration of the integrated rural energy planning framework for

sustainable energy development in low-income countries: Case studies of
rural communities in Nigeria
B. Ugwoke a, c, *, S. Sulemanu b, S.P. Corgnati a, P. Leone a, J.M. Pearce c, d
a
Energy Center Lab, Department of Energy Politecnico di Torino Italy, Via Paolo Borsellino 38, 1, 10138, Torino, Italy
b
IHS Towers, VI, Lagos, Nigeria
c
Department of Materials Science & Engineering and Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI, 49931, USA
d
Department of Electronics and Nanoengineering, School of Electrical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: With the vast rural population, the availability of locational renewable energy resources and limited finances in
Integrated energy planning low-income (developing) countries, there is the need for an integrated and holistic energy planning framework to
Integrated rural planning unlock their potential for achieving energy-based economic development. The integrated rural energy planning
Demand profile
framework provides a unified road map for energy planning and system design with renewable energy inte­
GIS
Nigeria
gration geared towards improving energy access in rural areas. Therefore, this study presents the application of
case studies to this framework to foster improved localized renewable energy access in low-income (developing)
countries. Using rural Nigeria as the geographic scope, the site identification and selection and the locational
estimation of annual energy demand steps of the framework are performed for rural areas. Utilizing GIS-based
tools, rural communities are identified, and their viable renewable energy resources are estimated. Adopting
the reference building approach, seasonal disaggregated energy demand profiles are obtained at community
scale with an hourly time-step. These are obtained in the absence of smart-metering equipment and measured
datasets on energy use. The obtained results provide insights to inform localized energy policy design by
combining rural electrification with energy conservation strategies. This framework has wide applicability across
areas with similar energy access and rural development issues especially in sub-Saharan Africa and developing
Asia.

1. Introduction
Although the use of the term developing country (or less economi­
cally developed country (LEDC)) is debated, it is generally agreed to
refer to a country with a less developed industrial base and a low Human
Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries [1]. In 2010, the
HDI was reformulated to include a life expectancy, education and in­
come indices to better gauge the development of a given country [2].
The countries in sub-Saharan Africa were ranked the least developed [2]
and although there is a general trend of increased urbanization, the
majority of people continue to live in rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa
[3]. It is well-established that the availability and adequate supply of
energy is needed to drive development [4], yet roughly 20% of the
world’s population do not have access to electricity [5]. Today,
electricity is viewed as the type of energy most valued and needed for
development [6]. Thus Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) calls for
universal access to sustainable energy by 2030 [7]. Decentralized
renewable energy may be the most appropriate for addressing the en­
ergy needs of the underserved [8], especially rural communities of
sub-Saharan Africa [9] as it may enable developing countries to leapfrog
the development of conventional electric grids [10], and adopt a more
distributed electricity service model [11]. This type of energy-based
economic development holds great promise [12] and yet there are still
unanswered questions on the modalities to inform an integrated and
holistic energy planning framework targeting these rural areas [13].
There is also the lack of synergy in terms of strategies and methodologies
available with which to define how best to move their rural areas to
adequate renewable energy [14]. The integrated rural energy planning

* Corresponding author. Energy Center Lab, Department of Energy Politecnico di Torino Italy, Via Paolo Borsellino 38, 1, 10138, Torino, Italy.
E-mail address: blessing.ugwoke@polito.it (B. Ugwoke).
URL: http://www.energycenter.polito.it/ (B. Ugwoke).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2021.110983
Received 4 March 2020; Received in revised form 22 December 2020; Accepted 14 March 2021
Available online 21 March 2021
1364-0321/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
B. Ugwoke et al.
framework avails a unified road map for energy planning and system
design and operation with renewable energy integration geared towards
improving energy access in rural areas. It also tackles the already
identified challenge of lack of systematic planning regarding rural
electrification [15].
Therefore, this study presents the application of case studies to the
integrated rural energy planning framework for improving localized
renewable energy access in low-income (developing) countries. Adopt­
ing rural Nigeria as the geographic scope, the site identification and
selection and the locational estimation of annual energy demand steps of
the framework are performed for rural areas. Firstly, by means of GIS-
based tools, rural areas that present themselves as “low hanging fruit”
are identified and the available renewable resources in those areas are
estimated. Secondly, rural energy demand is estimated in the absence of
smart instrumentation to obtain an overall disaggregated energy de­
mand profile with an hourly time-step at a rural community scale. De­
mand side management has been based on both demand response and
energy efficiency [16]. Therefore, six composite energy demand re­
ductions strategies are adapted for demand side management based on
energy efficiency and indoor environment quality (IEQ) principles. The
results are discussed in the context of using an integrated rural renew­
able and sustainable energy planning framework for all low-income
countries. The paper has five main sections, Section 2 provides an
overview of the Integrated Rural Renewable and Sustainable Energy
Planning Framework and three planning approaches that informed the
framework; Section 3 describes the method and materials employed;
Section 4 presents the results, discussions and recommendations for
future work while Sections 5 provides the conclusions.
1.1. Case study: Nigeria
Nigeria was selected as a case study because is prototypical for
developing countries in sub Saharan Africa that needs rural electrifica­
tion. Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa [17] and also doubles as
the “the poverty capital of the world” [18]. It was reported that as of
June 2018, approximately 87 million Nigerians were living in extreme
and abject poverty [18]. As a result, Nigeria earned a sustainable
development goal 1 (SDG1) status of “Poverty Rising” [19]. Nigeria is
the most populous African country and ranks seventh most populous
country in the world [20]. At an annual population growth rate of 2.6%
[21], Nigeria would become the third most populated country on the
globe with a population of 480 million people by 2050, having reached
200 million people in 2019 [22]. Half of the Nigerian population also
resides in rural areas (51%) [23]. Of the entire rural population, only
41% have electricity access, which is well below the 86% electricity
access for the urban population in Nigeria [24]. Nigeria’s rural areas
chiefly depend on agriculture for sustenance, which still drive the
Nigerian economy with farming and fishing making up nearly half
(47%) of Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) [25]. As in other
developing countries throughout the world [26], there is chasm between
urban and rural development in Nigeria despite the Nigerian govern­
ment’s programs, initiatives, and policies beginning in the 1980’s to
foster the development of rural areas [27] including prominent strate­
gized initiatives [28].
In Nigeria a rural area is defined as those with a population density
less than 200 persons per km2, situated more than 10 km from city
borders and at least 20 km from the nearest 11 KV transmission line
[29]. Although rural areas of Nigeria have been referred to as economic
goldmines with features for tourists’ attractions, these areas lack basic
infrastructure including pipe-borne water supply, primary health care
service, literacy of the workforce, motorable roads and electricity access
[28]. There is a host of issues limiting further rural electrification,
including a lack of inclusive, definite planning and concise action steps
[30]. Indeed, there have been cases of decommissioning and abandon­
ment of already implemented off-grid energy systems primarily due to
the gross underutilization of system capacity [31].
2
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110983
Fortunately, many rural communities in Nigeria are situated near
indigenous renewable energy (RE) resources such as hydro, solar, wind
and biomass and these resources can be harnessed to spur the deploy­
ment of appropriate small-scale RE-based energy systems [32]. These
systems are viable alternatives for rural electrification [13] given the
geographic isolation of rural settlements situated in hilly terrain and
mountainous landscapes that prevent economic national grid extensions
to the area [33].
2. Background on integrated rural energy planning (IREP)
The IREP framework emanated from exploring the state of art review
of peer-reviewed literature on energy access studies spanning energy
planning, electrification planning, rural electrification, renewable
resource potential, energy & electricity access impact, and policies &
reforms [34]. Regarding rural electrification, the extensive systematic
literature review performed spanned off-grid energy system design,
feasibility analyses, rural electrification planning, case studies and rural
electrification impact studies. Rural electrification studies largely favour
disaggregated levels for spatial coverage and focused on specific loca­
tions at varying levels including sub-national (rural or urban), regional
zones [35], administrative domains [36]) and local (specific cities [37],
villages [38] etc.) This disaggregation proffers more insights and new
perspectives on the intricacies of rural energy access than a
country-level approach. Rural electrification embodies multiple di­
mensions including technical, economic, environmental, policy and
social dimensions [34]. Therefore, rural energy planning should embed
these dimensions and provide a holistic strategy for improving rural
energy access.
Therefore, given the multifaceted and multi-disciplinary nature of
energy access studies, there exist a plethora of methodologies and ap­
proaches to be adopted. However, there is no consensus on a stan­
dardized framework to synergize the already available strategies and
methodologies to improve rural energy access. There is also an oppor­
tunity to co-ordinate efforts and opportunities for collaboration between
non-experts and experts as the overall framework would be immensely
facilitated by the application of a multi-tool approach drawing insights
from the narrative in literature. Therefore, there is a need for an inte­
grated rural energy planning approach that would streamline and
standardize the rural energy planning process [39]. This will enhance
understanding the different rural customer segments to capture the
inherent market potential for rural electrification [40]. All these insights
gained led to the conceptualization of a holistic integrated framework,
the IREP framework as a multi-faceted and more convoluted approach to
exploit the interconnections, interdependence, and linkages among
these review topics.
2.1. Integrated rural energy planning (IREP)
The integrated rural energy planning (IREP) framework presents a
unified road map for energy planning, system design, and operation with
renewable energy integration geared towards improving localized
(rural) energy access. It entails energy planning in a rural context which
is a complex and dynamic undertaking [41]. Accordingly, IREP aims to
incorporate appropriate energy solutions to deliver modern energy ac­
cess to rural dwellers [42]. Herington et al. [41] concluded that rural
energy planning ought to be more participatory involving all the key
stakeholders in plenary sessions. In addition to being place oriented,
IREP is also a process oriented [42]. IREP places emphasis on
techno-economic, socio-cultural and political issues with people centred
criteria to proffer sustainable technical interventions for localized en­
ergy access [41]. Therefore, IREP calls for a coherent approach
espousing integrated long-term, energy planning, and energy system
modelling to analyse the complex dimensions and interrelations of rural
energy solutions [41]. This can then serve as a blueprint for co-ordinated
joint efforts geared towards driving rural energy access [34]. IREP
B. Ugwoke et al.
buttresses features of two planning concepts namely; the Integrated
Energy Planning (IEP) Concept and the Integrated Rural Planning (IRP)
Approach. IEP embodies a holistic and systematized investigation of
energy issues within a unified policy framework to obtain a set of
optimal energy solutions [43]. It entails multi-disciplinary stakeholders’
involvement and one critical result of the entire process is the realization
of an energy master plan [44]. It purposes to inform energy infrastruc­
ture investments and policy formulation strategies to shape the future
energy landscape for a given geographic extent [44]. The concept of IRP
embodies the coalition of co-ordinated joint multifaceted approaches
that are widely applicable across multiple sectors with the underlying
aim of addressing rural developmental issues [45]. It encompasses the
different dimensions of technological, economic, societal, environ­
mental and cultural dispensations and necessitates the uptake of a
concise integrated approach incorporated with a spatial planning
methodology [46]. IEP [47] shares similar attributes with IRP [46] and
they are both prescribed as long-term undertakings. They both require
all-inclusive engagement of multi-disciplinary stakeholders [48] and
they are ultimately tasked with driving sustainable development in their
respective domains [49].
The IREP framework is presented in a brief and concise scheme using
three methodical action steps as depicted in Fig. 1. The different seg­
ments of the framework address the following pertinent questions sur­
rounding action steps on rural energy planning. Firstly, given the
vastness of the rural population coupled with cultural diversities and
prevalent geo-political dichotomies, which rural communities can be
identified and selected as “low-hanging fruits” with considerations for
the locational energy resource availability? Secondly, given the absence
of smart-metering equipment and measured datasets on rural energy
use, what approaches can be adapted to perform robust and targeted
energy demand estimation at disaggregated end-use levels with con­
siderations for different demand sectors and opportunities for energy
demand reduction? Thirdly, as energy demand is not static, how can
comprehensive energy system analysis be performed at local levels to
investigate the possible evolution of the demand and supply over a long-
term period? Fourthly, what modalities can inform the deployment and
implementation of decentralized renewable hybrid off-grid energy sys­
tems for localized (rural) applications in low-income countries?
The site identification and selection step draw on the insights gained
from renewable energy potential and technologies, and electrification
planning studies which informs the identification of suitable
Fig. 1. Integrated Rural Energy Planning (IREP) Scheme adapted from Ref. [34].
3
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110983
communities and the mapping of an optimal integrated mix of indige­
nous renewable energy (RE) resources for rural electrification. The
robust energy demand and supply estimation step draw on insights from
energy planning, electrification planning and rural electrification
studies to proffered varying levels of energy demand across different
locations and application areas. These insights inform the locational
estimation of annual energy demand with consideration for different
demand sectors (residential and non-residential sectors). These insights
are also incorporated into investigations on suitable energy demand
reduction scenarios. These steps inform the focus of this study.
Considering the vast potential of RE resources in many rural areas
[50], it becomes essential to provide strong support for IREP to facilitate
their efficient use [34]. Moreover, given the localized dispersion asso­
ciated with these energy resources, the inclusion of a spatial planning
element into IREP becomes indispensable [51]. In addition, with the
levels of disaggregation and complexities envisaged, it would deem it
appropriate to inculcate a bottom-up method that is location dependent
in the framework [52]. Regarding IREP, Rojas-Zerpa and Yusta [53]
reviewed some salient aspects to be considered. The first being the
application zone especially since distributed generation is advocated for
rural areas [54]. The second aspect is the planning horizon of which long
term comes highly recommended, thus prescribing long-term energy
planning tools. The third aspect is decidedly the objective, which could
be multifaceted to consider environmental, economic, social, cultural
and/or institutional dimensions. The last aspect is the technological
systems for the energy planning exercise. This study is performed based
on all these different aspects of IREP.
Indeed, to actualize integrable off-grid rural energy solutions, it is
essential to carryout robust energy demand estimations and forecasting
[55]. Kazas, Fabrizio and Perino [56] buttressed the need to estimate
detailed energy demand profiles with well-defined time resolutions.
They considered the geographic context, built environment character­
istics and the lifestyles of the inhabitants. These attributes inform
design, sizing and optimization of decentralized energy systems at local
scales. On a global scale, some attention has been given to energy
planning for developing countries [57], in addition to electrification
planning [53]. From a Nigerian perspective and at localized scales, more
work is needed to provide insights on rural case studies and how the
adoption of the IREP framework can spur sustainable rural development
[50]. Also, this would inform strategies for local RE potential mapping,
exploring avenues for energy saving and embracing energy efficiency at
B. Ugwoke et al.
local levels [34].
IREP provides a decentralized planning approach that buttresses the
development of indigenous renewable energy resources to spur sus­
tainable development at localized scales [58]. Regarding rural energy
modelling and planning, there are several tools being adopted in the
scientific literature such as the open source spatial electrification
(OnSSET) tool [59], the off-grid market opportunity tool [60], the
Reference Electrification Model (REM) [61], the Network Planner tool
[62] and a host of other applications for electrification pathways [63].
These tools are mostly open source and adopted for rural electrification
planning at national and regional scales. Additionally, these tools can be
integrated into the IREP framework especially for the site identification
and selection step.
3. Method & materials
The comprehensive methodology aims at demonstrating the inte­
grated rural energy planning framework geared towards locating,
planning and operating integrable off-grid energy systems for rural ap­
plications. As shown in Fig. 1, this paper has three focus areas: 1)
identifying rural communities that present themselves as low hanging
fruit opportunities to deploy RE, 2) evaluating the viable RE resource
potential utilizing geographic information system (GIS) based ap­
proaches, and 3) robust and targeted energy demand estimation using
the reference building (RB) approach.
3.1. Site identification and selection
Site identification and selection entailed detailed map analysis uti­
lizing GIS-based tools. Suitable communities were identified for the
implementation of integrable off-grid energy system. These selections
were based on well-defined macro criteria related to four dimensions:
the built environment, economy, society and energy [64]. Subsequently,
the viable RE resource potential in these communities were evaluated to
select the most suitable mix of resources to electrify these communities.
3.1.1. Rural community selection
Suitable locations were identified and selected based on the inte­
grated low-hanging fruit approach proposed by Szabo et al. [9], where
they advocated for “brownfield investments”, which are the utilization
of existing infrastructure for business [65]. Excerpts from the Nigerian
Rural Electrification Agency (REA) [66] and Mentis et al. [54] also
informed this quantitative process and avail detailed descriptions of the
GIS layers and the dimensions criteria. Based on their results obtained
for the optimal electrification mix in Nigeria, attention was focussed on
the most appropriate locations for installing a mini grid. These locations
were then evaluated based on information from diverse GIS databases on
built environment characteristics (land occupation and building foot­
print including number of residential and non-residential buildings),
social dimension and amenities (population and presence of schools and
health care centres), economic disposition (availability of commercial
activities/establishments) and energy dimension (energy needs (non-­
electrified or underserved) and availability of RE sources). In this study,
the low-hanging fruits encompass rural settlements clearly suitable for
implementing mini-grid RE-based generation systems. This would
require harnessing local RE resource potential and applying appropriate
technological transformation options [67], including open source tech­
nology [68], such that can facilitate community empowerment [69].
This include exploring the small hydropower (SHP) potential [70] of
some non-powered dams constructed for irrigation purposes or flood
control. The solar potential would be harnessed by incorporating solar
photovoltaic (PV) systems in appropriate locations [14]. Agricultural
waste biomass can also be explored as they do not compete for land,
water and fertilizers with food crops [71]. The Nigerian Energy Database
(NED) [66] provided GIS data sets, which included ground level geo­
spatial data, map databases, the current existing and planned
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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110983
transmission network, population data, demographic data sets, admin­
istrative areas, and power plants locations. The availability of official
geo-referenced databases for non-electrified communities and electricity
infrastructures, provided by the REA, the off grid market opportunity
tool [60] and the Economic Community of West African States (ECO­
WAS) web-based open source Electrification Pathways tool, ECOWAS
Regional Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE)
[72] facilitated this study. Firstly, the available spatial data were
collated, systematized (with respect to the EPSG: 4326 – WGS 84 co­
ordinate reference systems (CRS) [73]) and verified by viewing the lo­
cations remotely on Google map. After the spatial processing of the data,
different GIS layers were obtained using the free and open source QGIS
3.4.15 package [74]. They were overlaid on each other and further
analyses were performed to yield digital maps showing suitable loca­
tions for utilizing various RE technologies. These locations were subse­
quently analysed to access the RE resource potential and expected
electricity output on a location by location basis with more details in the
next section.
3.1.2. Renewable energy (RE) resource assessment
The RE resource potentials were mainly calculated from renewable
energy resource maps, available meteorological data and other
geographic information including land cover and land use maps. The
approach put forward by the International Renewable Energy Agency
(IRENA) [75] and correlations contained in other existing scientific
literature were adopted. This involved going from the theoretical po­
tential to the technical potential. Overall, this encompassed data
collection and collation from RE resource maps, and landcover maps.
Data processing and synchronization (formatting and harmonizing)
followed. This led to the extraction of location-based data for RE
resource potential calculations. The obtained results were compiled into
integrated digital maps to aid visualization and comparison of the local
RE conditions. This was more insightful than an aggregated overview on
the entire country.
The technical energy available from solar PV (EPV) in GWh/yr was
evaluated using:
SRA ​ *ŋ ​ * ​ A ​
EPV = (1)
GCR
where SRA, the solar resource availability is the irradiation for the target
location in kWh/m2/yr from the Photovoltaic Geographical Information
System (PVGIS) database [76]. In order to be conservative, ŋ the PV
module efficiency, was set at 17% as it represented the average effi­
ciency of commercial PV modules [77]. The efficiency of PV devices
continues to increase [78] and near term (e.g. lab demonstrated) tech­
nologies already predict an increase in efficiency and decrease in cost
[79]. GCR, the ground cover ratio for estimating the ground areas
compared to the area of the PV panel on the order of 5 was adopted [75].
A, the available area in km2, was set to the extremes of 5% and 100% of
the inhabited area calculated in the GIS analysis to depict cases of land
availability in the elicited localities. It is assumed that a traditional solar
ground mounted system with tilt angles, azimuth angle and no shading
to provide optimal yearly production.
The hydropower capacity, Ehydro in MW for each non-powered dam
was estimated using:
Ehydro = ŋ*ρ*g*H*Q (2)
where ŋ is the generating efficiency with a value of 85% [80]. ρ is water
density of 1000 kg/m3 and g is gravitational acceleration of 9.8 m/s2. H
is hydraulic head in m and Q is design water flow in m3/s. The last two
parameters being location dependent were sourced from diverse sour­
ces: H was based on (existing irrigation dam [81], existing flood control
dam [82], existing flood control dam [83], existing irrigation dam [84])
and Q based on the African Flood and Drought Monitor Tool (AWCM)
[85].
B. Ugwoke et al. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110983

Agriculture crop residues were the only biomass category (waste approach is suitable for use when there is scarcity or unavailability of
biomass) considered being readily accessible feedstock for biomass-fired measured energy data. The approach was applied to Onyen-Okpon and
power plants. The approach entailed estimating the net primary pro­ Giere, which were selected rural settlements to capture the divergent
duction of the plant matter. Then applying the residue to crop ratio and climatic situations in the country. Onyen-Okpon (Fig. 2) is in Obubra
availability factor of the residue for energy production to deduce the Local Government Area (LGA) of Cross-river state, South-East Nigeria.
amount of energy obtainable from the agricultural crop residues. Only Giere (Fig. 3) is in Dange Shuni LGA of Sokoto state, North-West Nigeria.
harvested crop production areas in use are considered. Forest areas, Onye-Okpon represents a medium off-grid site, while Giere represents a
protected areas, and other unfarmed arable agriculture land were small off-grid site. They are both agrarian communities as agriculture
excluded zones from the bioenergy potential assessment. These analyses accounts for its chief source of income including farming food crops and
were facilitated the Global Atlas for Renewable Energy [86] and Global agro-processing industries including grinding mills. There is the preva­
Agro-Ecological Zones (GAEZ) model developed by the Food and Agri­ lence of artisans whose business activities include provision of personal
culture Organization (FAO) and the International Institute for Applied services (e.g. tailors, salons, retail trade, etc.) and community estab­
Systems Analysis (IIASA) [87]. The analysis resulted from a two-fold lishment (e.g. health centre and public schools) [99]. The RB distribu­
estimation approach namely; estimating the residue generated within tions depicting the local built environment are shown in Figs. 4 and 5 for
a typical temporal cycle of 1 year for a given geographic area and then the two communities.
estimating the energy content of the residue material. The energy po­ A complete definition of the main features and consumptions of the
tential (Ebio) in GWh/yr for a rural community, was estimated as follows: RBs are reported in Ref. [102]. The overall demand (Edemand) in kWh was
∑ estimated using the equation below based on the total amount of
Ri *ri *Qi *di *ai *ŋ
Ebio = i (3) buildings in the communities.
3600
∑
Edemand = ERB *ARB *NB (4)
where Ri is the annual production of crop, i in t/yr. This was obtained as
a product of the harvested land in 1000 ha [87] and the average pro­
where ERB is the energy use in kWh/m2 per RB based on the annual
ductivity per yield in t/ha/yr [86]. ri is the residue-to-product ratio of
(hourly) energy consumption of the buildings [102], ARB is total floor
crop i [88]. Q is the lower heating value of the given crop residue in GJ/t
area in m2 based on technical literature for building size and dimension
[89]. di, the dry matter fraction obtained based on moisture content of
data related to energy performance of buildings [103], international
the crop [90]. ai, the residue availability fraction was 95% for rice, 90%
standards [104] and national standards for residential buildings ([105],
for millet, 30% for maize (corn), 35% for soybean, and 100% for cassava
health centre [106], schools [107]) and NB is the number of buildings.
[91], while other crop residues adopted 60% [92]. ŋ is the efficiency of
Hourly energy demand profiles at a community scale were obtained
the energy conversion process. This research considers the biomass in­
from the aggregated community demand. The typical monthly day
tegrated gasifier technology as the biomass gasification was the rec­
(TMD) approach proposed in Ref. [56] was applied to obtain the sea­
ommended energy conversion technology for crop residues as biomass
sonal demand profiles. These yielded days for the characteristic seasons
feedstock [93] and the biomass integrated gasifier technology is the
namely the dry season (“Winter”) and the rainy season (“Summer”).
recommended technology for small-scale biomass power generation
Energy saving potential and the associated economic benefits were
[94]. The conversion efficiency of 30% is used for the estimation of the
estimated based on six composite scenarios comprising indoor envi­
technical potential based on recommendations for efficient technologies
ronment quality (IEQ) and energy retrofit & energy efficiency [102].
considering life cycle environmental impacts and annual costs [95].
The IEQ component considered acceptable level of comfort indoors
based on international standards on thermal comfort and indoor air
quality (ASHRAE 55:2010, ISO 7730 and CEN EN 15251 (2007). The
3.2. Energy demand estimation
energy retrofit & energy efficiency components were based on two
retrofit levels recommended in the Nigerian BEEC [108] and global
For optimal design of integrable off-grid RE system, robust estima­
perspectives from the IEA [109]. The investigated scenarios include
tion of the hourly energy demand of the given locality is required [96].
Standard retrofit-IEQ I, Standard retrofit-IEQ II, Standard retrofit-IEQ III,
At disaggregated energy use levels, this can also inform demand side
Advanced retrofit-IEQ I, Advanced retrofit-IEQ II and Advanced
management strategies. Demand estimation approaches have been
retrofit-IEQ III. The investment costs for the retrofit measures were
broadly categorised into 1) the top-down approach and 2) the bottom-up
estimated based on the costs of building materials presented in Table A1
approach [97]. Top-down approaches are mostly data intensive and
in the appendix. The discounted payback period was estimated consid­
reliant on large quantities of historical data, which are scarce for rural
ering the discount rate of 4.25% [110] and a calculation period of 20
areas. A bottom-up approach, specifically the reference building (RB)
years for both residential and non-residential buildings categories. The
approach has been adopted for the energy demand estimation in this
shadow rate [111] concept was applied to estimate the job creation
study as it provides disaggregated energy demand profiles showcasing
attributable to the implementation of the retrofit measures. This
the detailed energy end-use at a local scale.
considered the income tax rate of 24%, the average construction gross
annual salary of US$2,349.49 [112], the unemployment rate of 32%
3.2.1. The reference building approach: the Onye-Okpon (OO) and Giere
[113] and the employment multiplier (number of new jobs) for the
(GI) case studies
construction sector in Nigeria [114], to compute the new jobs from new
The RB approach allows for the projection of the energy demand
investments.
profiles taking cognisance of local conditions including the geomor­
phological setting of the built environment, usage, operation, habitation
4. Results & discussion
and climatic disposition of the locality [98]. It avails a bottom-up de­
mand estimation approach for estimating annual hourly energy con­
4.1. Low hanging fruit sites
sumption at disaggregated end-use levels with the help of a
representative set of individual dwellings. Based on the attributes of
Fourteen “low hanging fruit” RE sites of all kinds were extracted and
each representative building, virtual hybrid building models are created
populated on a digital map in addition to three mini-hydro sites. These
to simulate their energy consumption by means of an open source dy­
are shown in Fig. 6. One of the fourteen sites was in a protected area
namic multi-zone energy simulation software, EnergyPlus. This
(naturally conserved zone) and as a result was excluded for bioenergy
building-level simulation tool provided the energy profiles of these
consideration. The use of GIS based tools afforded a standardized and
representative buildings and their related energy flow scheme. The RB

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B. Ugwoke et al. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110983

Fig. 2. Aerial image of Onye-okpon [100].

Fig. 3. Aerial image of Giere [101].

Fig. 4. Reference Building distribution (Legend:2BDB-two bedrooms

Fig. 5. Small-scale shop distribution (Legend: G/M-grinding & milling shop,
bungalow, 3BDB- three bedrooms bungalow, FMFY-central corridor “face me I
TS-tailor shop, PS-petty trading store, VC-viewing centre, BRS-barber shop and
face you” building, RHC-rural health centre, PSCH-public (primary) school and
BTS-beauty salon) [99].
SSS-small-scale shops.) [99].

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B. Ugwoke et al.
Fig. 6. Identified locations (Low hanging fruits and mini-hydro sites).
transparent procedure for selecting promising prospective sites [115].
Given the geopolitical disposition of Nigeria, this would help eliminate
the bias and nepotism that oftentimes shroud the site selection process
[116]. The mini-hydro sites are located in states where surveys had been
carried out [117]. Some sites are near the country’s border and neigh­
bouring countries (e.g. Niger). This could present opportunities for
exploring cross-country or transboundary co-operation on power gen­
eration projects. This would, in turn, address the issue of gross
under-utilization of the small hydro potential in the region through
combining mutual RE resources.
4.2. Renewable energy resource potential
The comparative proportions of the available viable RE resources are
depicted in Fig. 7. Fourteen locations presented solar energy potential in
the range of 0.1–11.6 GWh/yr for a minimal available land area (5% of
inhabited area) and 1.7 to 232.7 GWh/yr for a maximum available land
area (100% coverage). The bioenergy potential for thirteen locations
encompassed the range of 0.03–3.45 GWh/yr. Two of the hydropower
sites have the potential to generate >1 MW (small-scale). One site has
the potential for <1MW (mini-scale) based on the classification schemes
for the sub-Saharan African region [9] and Nigeria [117]. Overall, the
cumulative potential capacity for solar energy and bioenergy reached
37.1 to 741.6 GWh/yr for the entire fourteen sites., 17.6 GW h/yr for
thirteen sites and 10.41 MW for three sites respectively. The northern
locations had the highest solar-irradiation figures. However, they do not
maintain this position in terms of viable resource availability due to land
availability. The southern locations had more desirable low hanging
fruit options. The dispersion of the RE resources was quite random.
Some sites favoured solar energy others favoured bioenergy in terms of
the magnitude of the RE potential, although it should be noted that for
any give surface area far more energy can be provided from PV than any
form of bioenergy [118] or even bio-sequestration [119]. This land
availability value was based off of the current land use, which in this
case is heavily dominated by farming. One potential method to allow for
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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110983
both bioenergy and solar PV production, which looks particularly
promising is the concept of agrivoltaics [120], particularly for opti­
mising the use of available land for energy production [121], consid­
ering the mutual benefits across the food–energy–water nexus [122].
Most of the proposed biomass crops were well spread across all the lo­
cations. They were mostly staple food crops popularly grown in the
country as seen in Fig. 8. The exceptions were oil palm and coffee which
are predominantly grown in Southern Nigeria [123]. Future work is
needed to take into account the potential of these crops for agrivoltaics
in Nigeria. The biomass crops also represent energy crops that could
provide for different generations of biomass feedstocks [124]. As such,
they can be regarded as easily leverageable bioenergy fuel options which
are indeed promising.1 The RE resource potential map is a critical source
of information that provides a visual representation of the apparent RE
situation. This can be useful to spark an open dialogue on IRP [125].
This can also drive the IREP process and strategies for exploiting the
sustainable development of these RE options [126].
4.3. Community energy demand profile: rural electrical energy usage
The monthly energy demand over a year is as shown in Fig. 9. The
hourly energy demand profile is disaggregated into lighting (L), elec­
trical appliances (EE) and space cooling (SC). These profiles were ob­
tained for days in the seasonal periods (the dry season (“Winter”) and
the rainy season (“Summer”)) as shown in Fig. 10. The TMD approach
resulted in a typical dry season day in April and February for Onye-
Okpon and Giere respectively. A typical raining season day in July
was obtained for both locations. The hourly load demand profiles were
obtained for these days.
There are some variations in the monthly energy demand within the
1
It should be noted that the GAEZ model considers the phenomenon of soil
fertility by inculcating historical and baseline climatic resources data. These are
reflected in the land resources database used for the simulation.
B. Ugwoke et al. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110983

Fig. 7. RE potential of identified locations (low hanging fruits and mini-hydro sites). a) At 5% available of community land area for solar PV, b) At 100% available
community land area for solar PV.

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B. Ugwoke et al.
Fig. 8. Percentage Distribution of Bioenergy crops across the “low hanging
fruits” locations (Source: from the authors based on Global Atlas for Renewable
Energy [86]).
Fig. 9. Community monthly energy demand for Onye-okpon and Giere.
seasonal periods. The dry season (precisely the month of May) consti­
tuted the highest demand due to the hot and dry weather experienced in
both locations. The lowest demand occurred during the rainy season
(August for Onye-Okpon and January for Giere) due to the incessant
Harmattan2 weather in this location. This mirrored the situation prev­
alent in the country even with the geographic location disparity reported
previously [127]. Throughout the year, the space cooling (SC) accoun­
ted for the highest projected energy end use. However, the cooling de­
mand is expected to continuously rise given the effects of climate change
in the region [128]. These effects are almost uniformly spread across the
globe irrespective of the minimal contributions from these rural settle­
ments [129]. As such it becomes imperative to peruse demand reduction
strategies in these locations [130]. There is a slight variation in the
lighting and electrical appliances monthly demand and the average
daily load for these electrical components (L and EE) arrived at 140 kW
2
The Harmattan is a season in West Africa, between the end of November
and the middle of March, which is characterized by dry and dusty northeasterly
trade wind blowing from the Sahara Desert.
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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110983
and 36 kW for Onye-Okpon and Giere, respectively. These correlated
with the estimations made by the REA [131].
The seasonal hourly load demand is shown in Fig. 10. The load peak
interval consisted of two prominent peaks (5AM–8AM in the morning
7PM–9PM in the evening), which can be attributed to people rising in
the morning and returning home in the evening. The off-peak periods
consisted of minimum load demand in periods from 12AM to 5AM in the
morning and 8AM to 6PM when the residential building demand dras­
tically drops as people are sleeping or outside their residences, respec­
tively. During the day the demand is attributed to a few non-residential
buildings.3 Overall, the shape of the community load profile mimics that
attributable to the typical domestic energy usage [132]. Electricity use is
almost entirely relegated to the morning and evening periods and hinges
on the inhabitants’ occupancy. The demand profiles buttress the insuf­
ficiency of productive end use loads, which is typical of many rural
settlements. The overall demand is dominated by the presence of many
residential buildings (see Fig. 2). This is synonymous with the shape of
the load profile reported in Ref. [132] where physical measurements
were taken in some rural African settlements. Considering a household
size of six persons in rural areas and the number of households in the
communities, the per capita demand may be estimated as 1,641 and 635
kWh/person/year for Onye-okpon and Giere, respectively. Of this the
electric (L and EE) component of the demand of 392 and 135
kWh/person/year for Onye-okpon and Giere, respectively. Based on the
UN Secretary General’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change
(AGECC) and their indicator for Incremental Levels of Access to Energy
Services [133], the energy usage falls under Level 2. This prescribes
productive levels of energy usage within the range of 100 to 2,000
kWh/person/year. However, this per capita estimation would be
shrouded in gross uncertainties given minimal information on the actual
population at such localized scales. This study, however, was within the
range. Other studies, like the World Bank multi-tier approach [134] can
be more easily broken down as it provides a tiered indicator for indi­
vidual households, while this study focuses on community scale. How­
ever, the individual building energy demand for the residential
buildings come under the Tiers 4 and 5 based on the obtained results.
The potential for energy saving is shown in Fig. 11 and this examines
opportunities for demand side management based on energy efficiency
and IEQ principles. The impacts of the suggested measures on the
community’s energy demand proffer overall reduction at varying levels.
For Onye-Okpon demand reductions up to 49%, while Giere’s demand
reductions reaches up to 52%. The Advanced retrofit-IEQ II, and
Advanced retrofit-IEQ III. Emerged as the most optimistic scenarios and
yielded the highest economic benefits accrued from energy savings.
These results buttress the assertion by Alstone et al. [8] that
demand-side energy efficiency in collaboration with the innovative
off-grid energy solution could alter the market dynamics of energy ac­
cess. This could also make available increasingly affordable and reliable
energy services in rural areas especially since many residents have
resorted to self-generation at $0.49/kWh (₦150/kWh) for petrol gen­
erators or $0.59/kWh (₦180/kWh) for diesel generators [131]. At a
diesel cost of $0.83/L (₦250/L) locally [99], these options are exorbitant
and not sustainable, thus severely raising the energy expenditure of
these unelectrified households. More so, the ensuing benefits from en­
ergy savings are shown in Fig. 11. The investment costs and payback
periods are reported in Fig. 12, while the additional benefits of green
jobs for the communities are shown in Fig. 13. The time value of money
is considered when using discounted payback unlike the regular
3
It should be noted that these communities are largely unelectrified and from
the time-of-use surveys the energy consumption during the day was from the
non-residential buildings. It is anticipated some daytime energy consumption
from residential buildings in the future as the communities are electrified. In
addition, as these are agrarian communities, the demand from agro-processing
endeavors are tied to the SSS where there is the grinding and milling sector.
B. Ugwoke et al. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110983

Fig. 10. Community hourly demand profile for Onye-okpon and Giere (Dry Season “Winter” and Rainy season “Summer”) (a–d).

Fig. 11. Community potential energy savings and demand reduction percentage (Legend: IEQ = Indoor environmental quality).

payback period. Therefore, the discounted payback period will be longer
than the regular payback period, but care must be taken when using it to
ensure it is being compared with other traditional approach for assessing
the profitability [135], and other discounted investments so a return on
investment is accurate [136].
4.4. Future work
This framework finds applicability across areas with similar energy
access and rural development issues especially sub-Saharan Africa and
developing Asia. In South Africa, cooling loads in Cape town townships
accounted for the highest energy consumption up to 300 kWh/m2/year
for residential building stock [137]. These correlated with the findings
for this study. Therefore, the findings show a high propensity for

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B. Ugwoke et al.
Fig. 12. Investment costs and discounted payback for implementation of retrofit measures across the two communities.
Fig. 13. Job creation benefits for the two communities.
reducing the energy demand and consequently obtaining significant
economic benefits. Similar results were obtained for traditional “local”
dwellings in Bushehr, Iran with similar climatic dispositions [138].
However, this study has some limitations. For the locational RE resource
mapping, future work is needed to investigate the optimum RE mix at
much more disaggregated levels in the decentralized case. For RB
approach of annual demand estimation, due to the paucity of data, the
estimation of cooking energy needs has not been carried out and this is
an important component of energy use among residential buildings.
Also, as rural residents leapfrog older technology options, this study did
not consider energy consumption from growing practices of distributed
manufacturing with digital technologies [139]. Energy consumption for
cooking in the residential sector and distributed manufacturing and the
associated impact on the building’s overall energy consumption could
therefore be investigated in future work. For the building retrofit mea­
sures, future research could also incorporate local construction mate­
rials, other innovative building envelope technologies and retrofit
measures beyond those used in this study. The energy efficiency retrofits
here were fairly well known and modest. Future work could investigate
radical improvement strategies including the adoption of window as­
sembly with low emissivity coatings and low conductive frames [140],
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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110983
roof and wall reflectance strategies including near infrared reflective
pigments [141]. Some of these are already been perused by other
developing countries [142].
5. Conclusions and policy implications
The integrated rural energy planning framework provides a strategic
scheme for drafting local energy master plans. These can facilitate local
renewable energy mapping and support the building of a strategic en­
ergy vision at a local level. In this study, the application of the site
identification and selection and the locational estimation of annual en­
ergy demand steps of the integrated rural energy planning framework
are presented for rural communities in Nigeria. Overall, the findings
here can be regarded as a proverbial “springboard” to facilitate the
discovery of other low-hanging fruit for RE deployment in rural areas of
the developing world. The obtained results also serve as inputs for the
comprehensive energy modelling step in the framework as depicted in
Fig. 14 where the scheme for the colour code is such that body of the
arrow aligns with the steps whose results are inputs for steps coded with
the colour of the arrowhead.
The obtained results have shown integrated digital maps of
B. Ugwoke et al.
Fig. 14. Synergies of the IREP framework.
economically viable solar energy, hydropower capacity, and bioenergy
potential that exist in these locations. These offer a concise visual rep­
resentation of the local RE potentials to inform plausible developmental
alternatives as well as to guide action plans towards achieving sustain­
able development. These information on the quantity, quality and type
of viable RE resource are crucial for decision making on the choice and
configuration of generation technology. The results also provide robust
information on the load consumption curves, which are crucial for the
optimal planning, sizing, design and configuration of integrable off-grid
RE-based energy systems. The results show the possibility to provide
energy access for rural areas by capitalizing on energy conservation
opportunities. These could alter the market dynamics for rural electri­
fication projects by coupling built environment rehabilitation with these
energy access projects. This would in turn raise the social acceptability
of these projects. With the high percentage of rural population in low-
income countries accompanied by high energy consumption attributed
to the built environment, it is imperative to promote the uptake of the
retrofit measures especially the advanced retrofit measures. Further­
more, the implementation of these ambitious and far-reaching retrofit
measures would largely be beneficial to the community in terms of
higher energy saving potential and avoided energy expenditure, and
more new employment opportunities. There is also the opportunity to
recoup investments at shorter time intervals for the investors. Addi­
tionally, the adoption of these measures would avail the possibility for
realizing the added benefit of improving the resilience of the built
environment to climate change effects. Therefore, policies are needed to
spur the implementation of these measures and ultimately enable the
realization of the ensuing advantages of energy efficiency investments.
These policies could proof useful in unlocking private sector investments
to fund low-cost building refurbishment projects. These projects can
then provide the necessary stimulus to scale up RE investments and
incentivise investments in other sustainable development initiatives for
12
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110983
rural areas. The results can aid policy makers with formulating localized
policies to champion pilot refurbishment projects and establish a port­
folio of low-hanging fruits to foster the extension of the approach to
identifying other localities. There is also the opportunity to incorporate
social and economic components into the design and successful imple­
mentation of stand-alone green policies which are largely merged with
national energy policies and initiatives that are not effective [143]. This
would then set to enforce an appropriate governance framework among
relevant stakeholder.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
B. Ugwoke: Data curation, Conceptualization, Methodology, Soft­
ware, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review &
editing, Visualization. S. Sulemanu: Methodology, Software, Formal
analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visuali­
zation. S.P. Corgnati: Supervision, Methodology, Writing – review &
editing. P. Leone: Supervision, Methodology, Writing – review & edit­
ing, Visualization. J.M. Pearce: Supervision, Methodology, Writing –
review & editing, Visualization.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This work has been facilitated by the financial support from Eni S.p.A
Italy by virtue of the Eni Award 2017 prize and the Witte Endowment.
B. Ugwoke et al. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 144 (2021) 110983

APPENDIX 1
Table A1
Cost of building materials and equipment for the retrofit measures.

Materials Costs (Naira) Costs (US $) Source

Standard retrofit Windows shades ($/m2) 12,000.00 39.16 [144]

Roof Insulation ($/m2) 6,200.00 20.23 [145]
Wall Insulations ($/m2) 7,920.00 25.84 [145]
Floors covering ($/m2) 8000.00 26.11 [144,146]
Advanced retrofit Double glazed windows ($/m2) 14,000.00 45.68 [145]
Stone coated roofing sheet ($/m2) 2,450.00 7.99 [144]
LEDs lighting ($/unit) 1,050.00 3.43 [145]
Window air -conditioner ($/unit) 90,000.00 293.69 [147]
Single-duct VAV system, no reheat HVAC systems ($/unit) 1,189,069.00 3880.14 [145,147]

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