Evaluating determinants of community renewable energy adoption in Nigeria: insights for sustainable energy transitions in Sub-Saharan Africa

Access to reliable and affordable energy remains a pressing challenge across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), with Northern Nigeria exemplifying persistent deficits in electricity access and adoption of community renewable energy (CRE) initiatives. CRE offers a promising pathway to address these challenges through decentralized energy provision and local engagement; however, evidence on the determinants of household commitment to CRE adoption remains limited in SSA contexts. Using survey data from 559 households across six states in Northern Nigeria, this study employs a multinomial logit model with interaction effects to examine how awareness and socio-structural characteristics influence varying levels of household commitment to CRE adoption. The findings indicate that income, awareness, and education are the principal determinants of household commitment to CRE adoption, while several other socio-structural characteristics exhibit more limited and context-specific effects. Interaction results further show that awareness conditions the influence of socio-economic constraints, amplifying or offsetting disadvantages associated with income and educational disparities. These findings suggest that policies focused solely on financial incentives may be insufficient where informational and institutional barriers persist. Instead, integrated approaches combining targeted awareness programmes, community engagement, and flexible financing mechanisms are likely to provide a more equitable pathway for scaling CRE adoption. While situated in Northern Nigeria, the findings offer transferable insights for context-sensitive energy transition policies across low-resource settings in SSA.