*2.1. Location of Research*

Data collection for this research was carried out in rural communities across two states in Nigeria, a lower-middle-income country in West Africa [35]: Lagos State, located in the South West region, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), which is located in the geographical centre of the country. See Figure 3 for a map of Nigeria, including the locations used for data collection.

Nigeria is a multi-ethnic and culturally diverse country, with 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory [36]. Rural locations across the country differ in terms of wealth, culture and weather, all of which can affect energy use. Hence, the locations were chosen in part to reflect a range of socioeconomic conditions. The selected communities were in what can be termed the 'urban fringe' of two major cities in Nigeria–Lagos (Lagos State) and Abuja (FCT). Lagos used to be the Federal Capital of Nigeria, but that role has now been adopted by Abuja, and the communities selected for the research have been involved in projects designed to increase energy provision via SHS. Indeed, the choice of communities was based on advice from Nigerian experts in rural electrification, including providers of SHS. A total of 150 households (50 in Lagos State and 100 in FCT), the majority without any type of access to grid electricity were surveyed face to face in six communities across both locations, and this was undertaken between May and June 2019. The households were selected using the following criteria:


Note that a few of the households surveyed had varying classifications of access to the grid. Some, particularly in Lagos State, lived 'under the grid', i.e., people who live in an area where electricity is available, but they are not able to access it for any number of reasons. Others had a connection, but the duration of electricity per day would not qualify them as having access under the MTF tiered system (see Figure 1).

The communities selected for the research are shown in Table 1. The sample for each location was drawn from three communities and while the intention was also to have 100 households for Lagos State this was not possible due to logistical constraints.
