‘Why I am dedicated to helping governments across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) expand energy access’

Dr. Olufolahan (Olu) Osunmuyiwa is an energy and climate innovation expert with close to 15 years of experience designing and scaling disruptive technologies, clean energy solutions, and system-strengthening strategies across Africa, Asia, and Europe. She currently serves as Director of Partnerships at nLine Inc., where she delivers cutting-edge measurements that equip governments, regulators, and utilities with data to diagnose grid performance, optimise energy system investments, and improve service delivery at scale. Prior to nLine, Olu held several academic and research positions, leading multidisciplinary projects that evaluated the impact of electrification and energy innovations on entrepreneurship, gender inclusion, and local economic development across sub-Saharan Africa and India. She currently serves on the Board of Environmental Defence Canada. She told ROTIMI IGE in this interview why she is deeply committed to aligning innovation, policy, and investment to accelerate equitable and sustainable energy transitions globally.

Many renewable energy entrepreneurs have a defining moment where the abstract concept of ‘clean energy’ became a personal mission. Was there a specific experience or realisation in your early career that convinced you that this specific path was how you would make your impact  on the world?

My journey into delivering tools for electricity investments and renewable energy technology adoption did not begin with any special scientific or engineering skills. It began with advocacy. As a child, I was already involved in child-rights activism. I did not have the language for ‘systems’ or ‘infrastructure’ then, but I understood injustice and what it meant when children were denied opportunity simply because of what resources were available to them. That early exposure shaped my view of the world. Years later, I experienced a loss that transformed that awareness into urgency. I lost someone in a fire incident—an incident that should never have happened. The cause was not complex. She was simply reading with a candle due to the absence of electricity. A basic utility. That moment clarified something for me: electricity infrastructure gaps are not statistics. They are lived realities with irreversible consequences. That loss is what spurred my deeper interest in electrification and all its accompanying technologies—not as a career choice alone, but as a tool for prevention, equity, and productivity.

And as my knowledge and skills grew, so did my awareness of the gaps around me. I saw how access to technology, reliable and quality electricity is unevenly distributed. Now, I enter technical spaces, lead an energy and technology innovation hub and sit on a Board of an environmental organisation not just to help build electricity systems that are resilient, but to close gaps I have personally witnessed. A more reliable system means fewer failures for people who cannot afford disruption, which is why for me, the daily grind of technical work carries weight—because behind every electrification decision is a human outcome. When electricity infrastructures work, people’s lives improve. When they fail, it amplifies risk and people pay the price.

We often measure success in megawatts installed or carbon tons offset. However, looking at the communities you serve, can you share one specific human story—perhaps a family or a small business owner—that vividly illustrates how your work has tangibly altered the trajectory of a life?

I have worked in 16 countries and on four continents across the world, so I have a lot of stories. However, I will briefly share two stories that come to mind. The first took place in rural Malawi, shortly after I completed my PhD. I had been hired as a consultant to evaluate how equitable governance structures were functioning around newly deployed mini-grids. But as I sat with villagers, the conversation shifted. Instead of abstract discussions about committees and rules, I was handed a list: lights for more homes, power for a maize mill, electricity that lasted beyond a few hours a day. It struck me electricity had already changed enough to make people imagine more. In that moment, I understood that for them, power was not an abstract system—it was a glimpse of a different future, still just out of reach.

The second story unfolded in rural Tanzania, across six villages where I was again consulting on the impacts of mini grids. I saw, firsthand, the transformative good that reliable electricity could deliver—extended business hours, improved services, new forms of productivity. But as I spent more time listening—especially to women—I began to notice a quieter story unfolding. The benefits were not evenly distributed. In communities where gender inequities were already deeply entrenched, electricity sometimes amplified those imbalances rather than correct them. Men had the connections, the appliances, the income streams. Women, in most cases, bore the ‘development’ costs of a project that was supposed to serve everyone. Electricity, I realised, was helping—but not everyone equally.

That realisation stayed with me. It led directly to the creation of a toolkit on how to design and deploy mini grids more equitably, with gender and social dynamics considered from the outset. It also allowed me to raise awareness—locally and professionally—for women who had been marginalised by a development intervention that was never meant to harm them. This experience continues to ground my work because it taught me a lesson I carry everywhere: technology is not neutral. It reflects the values, assumptions, and blind spots of the people who build it. Since Tanzania, I no longer ask only whether something works. I ask who it works for, and who might quietly pay the price.

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You are operating in a market that requires immense innovation and adaptation. What is one unique lesson the global North could learn from the resilient energy models you are building right here in Africa?

Operating in African energy markets forces you to innovate under conditions of scarcity, uncertainty, and constant disruption. The lesson that emerges from this context—and one the global North often underestimates—is that true energy resilience is not only a matter of technical sophistication but of contextual responsiveness, decentralised innovation, and socially inclusive design. This is a critical lesson for the global North as it confronts climate shocks, aging infrastructure, and growing inequality. Africa’s new energy models show that the future of energy is not just cleaner, but more localised, more human-centred, and more adaptable. And these are blueprints for resilience in an increasingly unstable world.

If you look forward 20 years, beyond just market share and profitability, what does ‘impact’ look like to you? Is it about energy access, policy change, or perhaps the generation of women engineers you are inspiring today?”

Looking ahead 20 years, impact, to me, means deliberately leveraging the tools and relationships available to me today to help governments across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) meaningfully expand energy access at scale. In my role as Director of Partnerships at nLine Inc, that translates into supporting critical global initiatives such as Mission 300, with a clear objective: directing electricity investments to the more than 600 million people in SSA who still lack access to power. Impact means working in close alignment with colleagues at Nigeria’s Ministry of Power—I say colleagues because we are ultimately striving toward the same objective. It involves helping them to identify the true pinch points within Nigeria’s electricity infrastructure and to strategically crowd in investment where it will unlock the greatest and most lasting change. If, over time, this approach results in more resilient power systems, improved policy execution, and a clearer pathway for sustained private-sector participation, that is the kind of legacy I would consider meaningful.

Building a renewable energy company requires a rare mix of technical engineering skills and scrappy entrepreneurial grit. How do you find and cultivate talent that possesses both the technical know-how and the resilience required for this market?

I believe you are referring to my other start-up EcoClusion. I have been blessed with people who share the same passion and drive. I also believe having the right social capital and network can go along way. Most of my collaborators were referred.

There is a debate about the role of public versus private capital. From your vantage point, why is government investment specifically (not just private equity) critical for de-risking the renewable sector in Africa right now?

Government investment is critical to de-risking Africa’s renewable energy sector because many of the risks that currently suppress private capital are structural (policy, currency, and offtaker risk), not commercial—and only the public sector can credibly address them at scale. Renewables are now cost-competitive, yet what deters private investors is uncertainty around tariffs, contract enforcement and forex. Private equity can price these risks; but governments is the only one that can underwrite them. Second, public capital also plays a market-shaping role. Early public capital—whether through concessional debt or anchor equity—compresses risk to a level where commercial investors can enter at scale. This is not crowding out; it is crowding in. Public capital is what turns renewables from “theoretically attractive” into bankable assets. Third, government participation provides credibility and signaling. When a sovereign commits capital, it signals policy durability, reduces perceived political risk, and lowers the cost of capital across the entire sector. This signaling effect is especially powerful in Africa, where investor sentiment is highly sensitive to political volatility. One dollar of credible public investment can unlock multiples of private capital precisely because it changes expectations, not just balance sheets. In short, private capital scales what already works; government investment is what de-risks the system so those opportunities can exist at scale in Africa.

If you had a private audience with the Minister of Energy and could ask for one specific change—not a vague ‘more support,’ but a concrete policy shift or investment vehicle—what would unlock the most value for the industry immediately?

If I had one concrete request of the Minister of Power, it would be the consideration of a nationally funded Digital Twin and Real-Time Monitoring Program for Nigeria’s electricity grid. In practical terms, this would involve establishing a national requirement for generation, transmission, and distribution operators to integrate live grid asset data—via real-time sensors—into a shared, secure digital twin platform focused on energy resilience and system performance. Such a platform would be most effective if the initial capital investment and core data architecture were supported by the Ministry of Power, creating a common backbone on which operators and market participants could build. The potential value of this approach is significant.

It would enable a shift from largely reactive grid operations toward predictive, system-wide risk management, reducing unplanned outages, lowering maintenance costs, and strengthening investor confidence in the sector. In addition, a national digital twin would provide a neutral foundation for innovation. By standardizing data interfaces and system models at a national level, the Ministry of Power could enable a broad ecosystem of Nigerian AI providers to contribute solutions—without the government needing to select or endorse specific technologies.

So how will this work? A balanced model could apply; government funds and governs the shared sensor and data architecture, while industry participants finance integration and ongoing optimization. The outcome would be a grid that can be continuously observed, stress-tested, and improved, rather than primarily analysed after disruptions occur. From our perspective at nLine, this is the problem space that GridWatch was designed to address—providing real-time visibility and digital-twin insights that make grid resilience operational rather than theoretical. However, the broader point extends well beyond any single solution or provider. As Nigeria continues to advance power-sector reforms, strengthening the digital coordination layer of the grid represents an important opportunity to consolidate gains, reduce losses, and support long-term economic growth.

How does domestic investment in renewable energy correlate with national security and economic sovereignty for African nations? Why should a government view this not just as ‘infrastructure’ but as ‘independence’?

Domestic investment in renewable energy for African nations is a strategic axis of national security and economic sovereignty. This is because energy influences virtually all facets of state power — from geopolitical autonomy to fiscal stability, industrial competitiveness, and social resilience. I wrote about this during my PhD; even though Nigeria is oil-rich, we are still structurally exposed to the importation of refined petroleum products. Thankfully, with the arrival of Dangote refinery, that exposure is slowly diminishing. Oil and diesel imports drain scarce foreign exchange, amplify inflation, and leave governments hostage to supply disruptions far beyond their control. Therefore, Nigeria’s investments in solar, wind, and hydro can further insulate us from external volatility.

Energy dependence is a geopolitical vulnerability, and as a country, if you rely on imported fuel, you surrender leverage in moments of stress. So, investment in domestic renewables reduces those pressure points. The economic case for renewable energy is equally compelling. For instance, utility-scale renewables are now 40% cheaper than fossil-fired generation. This means that renewables offer lower energy costs for manufacturing and industrial growth and keep capital, skills, and jobs at home rather than exporting value through fuel imports.