The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said 58 per cent of households in Nigeria are connected to the national grid.
This was contained in the agency’s ‘Nigeria Residential Energy Demand Side Survey (NREDSS) 2024,’ unveiled in Abuja.
According to the survey report, nine states; Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Ekiti, Oyo, Enugu, Kwara, Plateau, Kano, and Sokoto, were selected across the six geo-political zones of the country for the survey and households from each state were interviewed, making a total of 8,100 households across urban and rural areas.
The NBS said 86.6 per cent of households connected to the grid had electricity supply, 85.2 per cent of them used an estimated billing system, while 14.8 per cent used a pre-paid billing system.
The survey further showed that the average monthly expenditure of households on electricity was estimated at N4,155.8 during the survey period.
The bureau further said 67.8 per cent of Nigerian households use fuelwood as a source of energy for domestic, agricultural, commercial, cultural, or religious purposes.
It added that about 41 per cent of the households purchase the fuelwood, while 39 per cent collect it themselves.
“While 18.9 per cent of households used other means such as barter, gift, and borrowing,” the bureau said.
“More than half of the fuelwood are cut or collected by households, 55.3 percent were branches, stems, and trees.”
Furthermore, the NBS said one in every five households, an average of 22 per cent, used charcoal, with 21.6 per cent purchasing the product.
The bureau added that 19.4 per cent, about one in five households, use liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), also known as cooking gas.
“The average monthly expenditure on LPG stood at N10,239.7 across the surveyed states,” NBS said.
The NBS advised the government to promote the re-planting of trees, given the wide use of fuelwood. and encourage the use of clean energy such as LPG, wind, and solar, saying this will help to reduce environmental problems such as air pollution, water pollution, climate change, thermal pollution, and solid waste disposal.
The bureau also recommended that the government encourage the establishment of more LPG stations while promoting local production of gas cylinders to lower the end-user’s cost and optimise electricity generation by decentralising the national grid through mini-grids.