Impact of a Web Based Crowdfunding Application for Renewable Energy Projects in Nigeria

Abstract

Energy crisis is one of the major challenges confronting African countries. Nigeria has a growing energy demand, and about 70% of its citizens lack access to electricity, especially in rural areas which constitute 60% of the population in the country that depends mainly on fuel wood. The adoption of renewable energy systems as a viable alternative to solve the energy crisis has been hampered by major challenges such as inadequacy, unsustainability, and poor reliability. Access to credit and other financial services remains limited, worsening these issues and hindering progress toward the provision of affordable and clean energy. Hence, the thrust of this work is to develop a web application for crowdfunding renewable energy projects in Nigeria. The purpose is to create a financial technology in mobilizing funds from fellow citizens towards driving a stable electricity supply to every location around the country. The crowdfunding application consists of a frontend application built with react.js, a backend application built with node.js, databases, and a payment system. Two case studies are considered and economically analyzed: a wind turbine system and a wind-diesel hybrid system. The comparative analysis carried out shows that, for the two case studies, the total cost of electricity (COE), simple payback (SPB), and internal rate of return (IRR) are 12.89 $/kWh and 14.21 $/kWh, 161 years and 144 years, and 113.47% and 114.81%, respectively. Further, the sensitivity analysis results reveal that it is more cost-effective to use the wind turbine system alone than the hybrid configuration of wind and diesel.