Investigation of Efficiency Degradation of Solar Powered Street Lights in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria in Sub-Saharan Africa

Colossal funds have over the years been spent by the various State Governments in the Niger Delta region of the federal republic of Nigeria on the installation of solar powered Street lights to enhance the security of life and properties since grid power supply is almost non-existent in Nigeria; however, they often fail shortly after installation. This study investigated the causes of the observed failure of solar powered street lights in the Niger Delta and proffered solutions to ameliorate the ugly situation of efficiency degradation/ failure of solar powered street lights, which has negatively impacted the region over the years. From the study, the average values of the current, voltage, and power generated by the solar panels used for the study at different times of the corresponding temperature and light intensity on fifteen sunny days over the period of the study showed that the neat solar panels’ performance over the period is better than the soot covered panels’ performance as the values obtained for all the parameters investigated are far higher in the neat panels than the soot covered panels giving rise to an average percentage variance of 22%,41% and 80.39% in the current, voltage and power respectively of the soot covered panel from the neat panels. The calculated standard deviation and ANOVA of the power generated by the neat and soot covered panels also reinforce this result. Therefore, Soot, without doubt, is a major cause of the efficiency degradation /failure of solar powered street lights in the Niger Delta.