Rural Households' perception of solar energy as an alternative source of household electrical energy in Oyo State, Nigeria

Electrical energy is important for sustainable livelihood within rural households of Nigeria. Inconsistent and lack of electricity supply from the national grid is problematic. This study investigated rural households’ perception of solar energy as an alternative source of electrical energy in Oyo State. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 130 rural households. Data were collected using structured interview schedule and analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Majority (68.8%) of the respondents were male and 66.7% earned less than N20,000 in a month. Majority (67.2%) were connected to the national electricity grid (PHCN) with average electricity supply of 4 hours in 3 days per week. Most households spent N13,163.40 per month in fuelling their generators. The major household appliances respondents were willing to power with solar energy were light bulbs (95.2%), television (92.0%), charging of phone (87.2%), standing fan (66.4%), rechargeable lamp (60.0%), radio (55.2%), and DVD (52.9%) for 6-12 hours per day. Majority (52.8%) had an unfavourable perception towards use of solar energy as an alternative source of household electrical energy. There were significant relationships between respondents’ monthly income (r=0.269, p=0.002), religion (=0.244, p=0.019), education (=0.238, p=0.050) and perception toward the use of solar energy as an alternative source of household electrical energy. It was concluded that the respondents in the study area had an unfavourable perception towards solar energy as an alternative source of household electrical energy, therefore, rural households’ should be enlightened about solar energy.