An agreement was recently signed between the Nigerian government and the American company Sun Africa, with a view to installing solar energy production systems in a dozen localities poorly served by the national electricity network. The project, which will be implemented thanks to a $1.5 billion loan from Exim Bank, comes at a time when 85 million people do not have access to electricity in Africa’s most populous country with 206 million inhabitants.

Nigeria is determined to reduce the gap in access to electricity between the country’s urban and rural areas through the extension of the national electricity grid in...