Glory Oguegbu is an award-winning climate and energy entrepreneur and founder of the Renewable Energy Technology Training Institute (RETTI) and RETTI Virtual University for Energy Education. She is a keen coach and mentor to the next generation of African Energy Leaders who will drive a sustainable energy transition.

“Through solar power installed in my home and office, I can access even more opportunities to provide electricity access to people in Nigeria without light. Solar Electricity is Powerful.”

Oguegbu has no problem recommending installers who have come through her training centre to friends or neighbours.

Not only would she prefer to recommend trained engineers if a neighbour decided to install a solar system, but she’d be happy to train said neighbour on energy conservation and efficiency to ensure they got the best out of their systems. She is an eager advocate for the power of solar.

Not only is it a chosen profession, but she feels it can solve many of Africa’s challenges, primarily addressing energy access and the transition to a cleaner, stable and more predictable power source.

“Financing for climate-related projects around the world reached an estimated $632 billion in 2019 and 2020, according to the Global Climate Initiative. Only $19 billion came to Africa, including just $2 billion from the private sector.”

Oguegbu stresses that Africa can look to its 60% hold of the world’s solar capacity for quick gains.

“It means that Africa could lead in the space of solar power technology for electricity generation. We can focus on solar power for a more stable electricity.”

She states that innovative financing mechanisms, such as green bonds, crowd-funding, and public-private partnerships, can help mobilise the necessary investment to build new energy infrastructure. The moment Oguegbu truly appreciated what a difference solar energy access could make to someone started innocuously enough.

She spoiled her parents with a two-day hotel stay to celebrate her father’s 74th birthday, but it was really to get them out of the house to install a solar system.

Sharing her moment of appreciation for energy access, she says: “It was the look on my father’s face when he explained the burden that I took off his shoulders. When he explained the stress of buying diesel and repairing the generators, how much they had spent on living without electricity for eight years, he nearly cried with relief.

“That was the moment I realised the huge difference solar power could provide to those living off-grid. That is my own story, not lifted from elsewhere. It happened to me.”

While so many living in Nigeria currently don’t have access to solar power, she explains that solar has changed her life. Because of that, “I am able to be efficient and effective in my work and access opportunities to provide access to electricity to more people in the world. Solar energy is indeed Powerful!”

She believes implementing feed-in tariffs to promote renewable energy should really be strengthened within African countries, and that government should remove fossil fuel subsidies.

However, she understands the need for holistic thinking rather than just honing on one idea if she were the energy minister in Nigeria. The first thing she would insist on would be to upgrade the country’s energy infrastructure.

“This will promote the ease of integrating renewable energies into the power mix. The outdated infrastructure includes the national grid, transmission lines, and distribution networks. Upgrading this infrastructure can help increase the energy system’s reliability and efficiency, reduce losses, and improve access to electricity.”

Her vision for Africa is for a powered continent “with the people willing and able to pay for electricity, instead of stealing it, and getting the service they paid for. In this new Africa, stakeholders would not find corruption in the electricity sector.”

But, till that day comes, she’ll keep on publishing and sharing articles on energy and climate, watching her fellows from the Climate Leadership Fellowship and Africa Fellowship for Young Energy Leaders electrifying their communities, and taking guitar lessons so she can keep on singing. ESI