Purpose: Nigeria sits on massive renewable potential, yet clean power barely trickles into the national grid. This paper digs into why the transition keeps stalling despite the Electricity Act 2023 handing states the keys to their own power markets. Rather than celebrating the new legal framework, it examines the commercial and technical friction that is blocking developers from connecting to the grid. Methodology: This study used a qualitative policy review to examine Nigeria's renewable energy regulatory framework by reviewing key legal documents alongside relevant academic and industry publications. The selected materials, published mainly between 2023 and 2026, were examined through a structured narrative analysis to identify policy gaps affecting renewable energy policy readiness. Findings: The findings show that Nigeria has made important legal and policy progress, but implementation remains weak. The electricity market is fragmented, and renewable-energy developers continue to face challenges such as unclear federal-state coordination, limited grid capacity and flexibility, non-cost-reflective tariffs, and insufficient use of smart-grid, storage, and circular-economy technologies. The preliminary assessment produced a readiness score of 2.33 out of 6, suggesting that while policy ambition is evident, the conditions needed for effective market delivery are still inadequate. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The six-pillar framework gives researchers a concrete diagnostic for measuring transition readiness beyond checkbox compliance. For industry players, it highlights exactly where projects get stuck between permitting chaos and unbankable contracts. For policymakers, the paper makes the case for binding federal-state coordination treaties, mandatory storage and digital standards, aggressive mini-grid scaling, and placing consumer affordability at the absolute center of market design rather than treating it as an afterthought.
MARBIYAT TAHIR GIDADO, BASHIRU ABDULGANIYU, MOHAMMED NASIR MUSA, Umaru Umaru
The increasing digitalization of smart grids has significantly improved the efficiency, reliability, and sustainability of modern power systems. However, the integration of advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and cloud computing, has introduced new cybersecurity vulnerabilities that threaten critical energy infrastructure. This study presents a blockchain-enabled privacy-preserving Artificial intelligence framework designed to enhance cybersecurity in smart grid environments, with a particular focus on Northeast Nigeria as a case study. The framework integrates blockchain technology, federated learning, differential privacy, edge computing, and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven intrusion detection into a unified architecture to provide secure, intelligent, and privacy-aware protection for smart grid systems. The proposed framework was developed using the design science research methodology and evaluated through simulation and comparative performance analysis. The framework achieved excellent detection performance with an accuracy of 96.8%, precision of 95.9%, recall of 96.4%, and F1-score of 96.1%, significantly outperforming conventional centralized AI and blockchain-only approaches. The integration of federated learning and differential privacy effectively protected consumer information with a privacy leakage rate of only 2.7% while maintaining high model utility of 94.8%. The blockchain performance evaluation showed a transaction latency of 184.6 Ms, a throughput of 421.3 transactions per second, and efficient smart contract execution. The suitability of the framework for practical deployment with moderate resource requirements by computational assessment. The findings demonstrate that combining blockchain, privacy-preserving learning, and AI provides a comprehensive, scalable, and resilient cybersecurity solution for SGIs. This study contributes to the growing body of knowledge on smart grid cybersecurity and offers practical insights for utility providers, researchers, and policymakers seeking to strengthen the security and resilience of emerging smart grid systems, particularly in developing regions with infrastructural challenges.