Wind Energy Catalyst Workshop
Strengthening Policy, Institutional Collaboration and Investment Readiness for Wind Energy Development in Nigeria
Date: Friday, 16 October 2026 | Venue: Thought Pyramid Art Centre, Wuse II, Abuja | Conveners: NWEC, GWEC and The Electricity Hub (TEH)
Preamble
Nigeria’s wind opportunity depends as much on delivery readiness as on resource potential. That was the central conclusion of the Wind Energy Catalyst Workshop, held on Friday, October 16, 2026, at the Thought Pyramid Art Centre, Wuse II, Abuja. A second message, from Juliana Kainga, Africa Director, Wind Power at GWEC, was that the first wind project will set the pace for all that follow. A well-prepared, bankable and delivered first project builds the confidence of lenders, off-takers and regulators. A stalled one makes every later project harder to finance. Nigeria’s solar experience shows what not to do: in 2016, power purchase agreements totaling about 1,125 MW were signed with 14 solar independent power producers (IPPs). Yet, six years later, the 14 developers had still failed to secure the funding to proceed. Wind must not repeat that pattern.
The Nigeria Wind Energy Council (NWEC), in partnership with the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), brought together policymakers, regulators, utilities, academia, financiers, developers, development partners and industry stakeholders. Speakers and panelists represented the Federal Ministry of Power, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), the United Nations Development Programme, and Nextier. GWEC is the international trade association for the wind industry, bringing together companies, national associations, and institutions to promote wind power worldwide and support governments in creating the policy conditions for its growth. GWEC has been essential to the establishment of NWEC, providing the international expertise, networks and partnership on which the Council was built. NWEC records its appreciation for that support. The workshop aimed to strengthen policy dialogue, improve understanding of wind deployment pathways, promote collaboration among public and private actors, and identify priority actions that can accelerate wind development under the Electricity Act 2023.
Key Observations
Participants identified five interdependent requirements for wind development: Wind Energy Catalyst Workshop Communiqué
– Reliable resource data; grid and transmission readiness
– Credible off-takers and bankable power purchase agreements (PPAs)
– Clear and coordinated approvals
– Predictable investment
– Procurement pathways
• A persistent supply gap. NERC data show that in Q2 2026, Nigeria’s 28 grid-connected plants averaged 4,454.17 MW of available capacity and a plant availability factor of only 32.69%. The Federal Ministry of Power cited 13,625 MW of installed capacity against about 4,900 MW generated, and eighty-six
million Nigerians without access to electricity, 79% of them in rural areas.
• Diversification is needed. Nigeria’s energy mix is predominantly gas-fired. Wind, alongside storage, can add capacity, ease pressure on the grid and complement solar and hydropower.
• Plan generation and transmission together. Kenya shows the cost of getting this wrong. The Lake Turkana wind project, East Africa’s flagship wind development, was completed before the evacuation lines were ready. A 300-megawatt (MW) project is not viable at a connection point that can take only 20–30 MW, so grid capacity must be assessed before project size is chosen.
• Lessons from Egypt and South Africa. Wind markets in both countries grew where governments turned resource evidence into a project pipeline, planned transmission alongside generation, offered credible procurement and revenue arrangements, and built local skills and supply chains. South Africa also shows the reverse: stop-start procurement damages investor confidence, a risk Nigeria must avoid.
• The first project sets the pace. Participants stressed that the first wind project will set the pace for all that follow. A well-prepared, bankable, and delivered first project builds the confidence of lenders, off-takers, and regulators and lowers the cost of capital for later projects. A failed or stalled one does the opposite.
• Practical constraints in Nigeria. Against this background, Nigeria faces several practical constraints: fragmented data, uncertain site access, lengthy land and right-of-way processes, transformer lead times of several months, poor roads in parts of Sokoto, Katsina, and Kebbi, limited information on demand, and limited ability of some buyers to pay. Each of these can delay a first project, which is why they must be addressed before projects are launched, not after.
Many of these constraints depend on how projects are approved and regulated, and here participants differed. NERC considers the existing mini-grid, captive, embedded-generation and grid-connected rules sufficient for wind at relevant scales, and has invited developers to submit evidence of specific barriers.
Developers called for a more tailored, single-window process. This difference was not resolved. It is why the evidence-sharing channel with NERC and the coordinated approvals mechanism proposed below (Recommendation 3) matter for the first projects.
Recommendations
The workshop generated the following proposals. They are recommendations for action by the institutions concerned, not formally adopted resolutions or funding commitments.
1. Resource data and project pipeline. Revalidate national wind measurements, consolidate existing studies, and develop a public Wind Energy Atlas that integrates resource, grid, land, road, demand and offtake data.
2. Grid and project readiness. Publish available substation, corridor and connection information, improve demand data, and assess grid capacity and evacuation infrastructure before project scale is chosen.
3. Institutional coordination. Use the NWEC Advisory Board, which brings together the relevant ministries, NERC, TCN, NISO, distribution companies, states, developers and partners, as the platform for a crossagency working group or single-window mechanism. The Board should coordinate approvals, grid 3 Wind Energy Catalyst Workshop Communiqué access, and offtake so that institutions work to a single timetable rather than in parallel.
4. Bankability and procurement. Prepare projects through feasibility and risk assessment, and establish predictable procurement, credible offtake and bankable PPAs, including competitive IPPs, suitable feed-in tariffs for smaller systems and bilateral PPAs.
5. Finance and risk reduction. Use public resources and development partners for early-stage studies, and mobilise concessional and blended finance, climate funds, guarantees and long-term local-currency finance.
6. Demand, hybrids and pilots. Match project size to network capacity and paying demand, evaluate windsolar-storage hybrids, and start with technically and commercially viable pilots before scaling.
7. Local industry, skills and communities. Implement the existing local-content policy in line with industrial capacity, build technical skills through university-industry partnerships, and engage communities transparently on benefits and security.
8. Project recovery and accountability. Independently assess delayed or abandoned projects before rehabilitation, validate the Katsina resource and turbine suitability, and assign responsibilities, milestones and periodic progress reviews. States were also encouraged to establish evidence of their wind resources, include wind in state energy plans, and use decentralised electricity-market opportunities. A proposed 24-month sequence runs from forming a cross-agency team (months 0–3) to advancing viable pilots through procurement (months 18–24).
Next Steps
Participants intend to turn these proposals into action through the following follow-up activities.
• Stakeholder roundtable and wind-system training, led by NWEC and partners, in November–December 2026, with training expected in November.
• A roundtable with UNDP and partners, in November/December 2026.
• A regulatory feedback channel, maintained by NERC on an ongoing basis.
• Details of further events, to be shared by NWEC and partners in the coming weeks.
Conclusion
Nigeria’s wind opportunity will be won or lost on delivery. The workshop showed that a large supply gap, strong resource potential and growing investor interest are not enough unless data, grid capacity, credible offtake, coordinated approvals and finance are in place together. Experience from Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria’s own solar programme points in the same direction: the first projects set the pace. Well-prepared, bankable pilots will build confidence for those that follow, while projects that outrun the grid or stall for want of funding will raise costs and deter investors for years. We therefore call on government, regulators, utilities, states, financiers, developers and development partners to act on the recommendations above; to coordinate through the NWEC Advisory Board and a single cross-agency process rather than work in parallel; and to move early pilots from proposal to procurement, so that Nigeria’s first wind projects set the standard for all that follow.