With more than 111,000 connections approved or in the pipeline, mesh-grids are scaling rapidly in small, dispersed communities across Nigeria.
KIGALI, Rwanda, November 4, 2026 – Nigeria has demonstrated that mesh-grids can deliver reliable, productive power to remote communities faster and at lower cost than mini-grids.
Dr. Abba Aliyu, Managing Director and CEO of Nigeria’s Rural Electrification Agency (REA), shared that experience with energy leaders from across Africa at a roundtable hosted by Okra Solar and GET.invest at the Global Off-Grid Solar Forum and Expo.
Mesh-grids combine solar generation, battery storage, and smart controls, linking homes and businesses into a single shared network so that power flows efficiently to where it’s needed. They fill the gap between solar home systems, which often can’t provide enough power for businesses, and conventional mini-grids, which can be costly to build in small, dispersed communities.
Mesh-grids will be a key component of Nigeria’s $750 million Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) programme, which aims to provide new or improved power to 17.5 million Nigerians. The programme has already reached 7.6 million people, with more than $582 million committed.
“DARES, our programme to expand renewable energy access, builds on the core activities of the Nigeria Electrification Project. We are improving those activities through lessons learned and expanding them in line with our strategic priorities. Mesh-grids are helping us forge ahead by giving us another option for communities where other solutions may be difficult or costly to deploy,” Dr. Abba Abubakar Aliyu, Managing Director and CEO, Rural Electrification Agency, said.
Following the Data
Under Dr. Aliyu’s leadership, DARES became the first national programme to treat mesh-grids as its own technology, offering a $300 results-based grant per connection, significantly less than a mini-grid connection, with remote verification before payment.
For more than 12 million connections in Nigeria, mesh-grids are more affordable than mini-grids. Mesh-grids deliver what the sector calls ‘productive use of energy’: sufficient power to run a business, not just to light a home.
In 2026, REA approved 13,438 mesh-grid connections for grants, with 98,000 more already in the pipeline. Connected communities in Nigeria report 97.7% uptime, and the top 10% of households use more than 1,400 Wh per day.
That is enough to run a chest freezer, a fan, a TV, and lights at the same time, or for a tailor to run a sewing machine, lights, and phone charging through a full working day.
Lessons for the Region
The roundtable brought together more than 20 leaders from governments, the World Bank, funders and developers. It launched GET.invest’s policy brief, Scaling the Adoption of Mesh-Grids in Sub-Saharan Africa, developed by GET.invest with input from CrossBoundary Access, GET.transform, Okra Solar and the Rural Electrification Agency of Nigeria. The brief draws directly on Nigeria’s experience.
Participants agreed that developers, the local energy companies that install and run mesh-grids, should have the freedom to choose the technology that delivers the least-cost energy access, and that results-based grants need a matching debt programme so local developers can fund the build.
The group committed to working together on a policy playbook to help countries learn from Nigeria and implement mesh-grid regulations more quickly. To this end, Dr. Aliyu invited policymakers and energy professionals to visit Nigerian communities where homes and businesses run on mesh-grids and to meet REA’s technical teams.
“Mission 300’s success will be determined by how fast we can energise the hardest-to-reach communities. Our promise is that mesh-grids get power there quickly and at least cost, with enough energy to run a business, not just light a home. With GET.invest’s policy brief, we have a starting point to turn Nigeria’s experience into an actionable plan to connect more communities!” Afnan Hannan, CEO of Okra Solar, said.