Leveraging Solar Energy for Sustainable National Economic Growth in Nigeria: A Policy-Oriented Discourse

Recent data from National Bureau of Statistics on electricity shows that, 48. 6% of the electricity used by homes and businesses nationwide is produced by generators using gas, diesel, and gasoline. With 12 out of every 25 Nigerians using generators and paying over 16 million a year to fuel just 14 million of them, the nation's electricity industry is rapidly degenerating. Nigeria's electricity sector has long underperformed relative to the country's population size, economic potential, and resource endowment. Despite vast natural gas reserves and significant renewable energy potential, electricity supply remains unreliable, insufficient, and unevenly distributed. In Nigeria, persistent electricity supply failures have become a structural constraint on productivity, industrialization, investment, and overall economic growth. The research is a policy-oriented discourse on leveraging solar energy for sustainable national economic growth in Nigeria. The theoretical policy-oriented discourse was anchored on the energy-growth nexus theory. The study adopted secondary source of data collection which was sources from academic journals, conference papers, policy papers, newspapers, and electronic databases. Descriptive content analysis approach was used for analysis of the secondary data. The paper established that, despite decades of reform efforts, the power sector continues to underperform relative to national demand. This failure not only reflects institutional and infrastructural weaknesses but also directly undermines Nigeria's long-term development trajectory. The study also found out that, solar energy presents a strategic opportunity to transform Nigeria's economic structure. With high solar irradiation levels across most regions of the country, large-scale deployment of solar technologies can stimulate productivity, employment, industrialization, and macroeconomic stability. The study recommended that, harnessing these potentials requires coherent policy design, regulatory certainty, financial innovation, and industrial strategy integration. If strategically implemented, solar energy can shift Nigeria from chronic energy deficits toward sustainable, diversified, and resilient economic growth.