Electricity Unreliability and Frozen-Food Retailers in Semi-Urban Abeokuta, Nigeria

Abstract

This study analyzed electricity supply unreliability and its effect on frozen food retailers in Abeokuta semi-urban areas of Ogun State, Nigeria. A survey of 208 retailers was conducted in this research using a multistage sampling method and questionnaires. Measurement scales that were created to evaluate electricity-related challenges and the well-being of retailers had high reliability (Cronbach 0.78 and 0.81, respectively). Key associations were explored with the application of multivariable regression models, which included age, income, freezer capacity, backup power and clustering as the controls. The results indicate that 61.4 percent of the respondents report four or more power outages each week and daily power outages are on average 9.16 hours and usually on high peak business hours. The most prominent effect of electricity outages was overall product quality degradation (mean = 4.86/5). Most retailers use generators as their primary coping strategy (mean = 3.93/4). The challenges of electricity were considerably linked with reduced well-being among the retailers (β = -0.28, 95% CI: -0.45 to -0.11, p = 0.003), which resulted in lowered income and savings and in job security. The correlation between the deteriorated state of electricity and the deteriorated well-being was also verified by Spearman rho (r = 0.321, p = 0.007). The paper highlights the necessity of a more dependable electricity supply and other energy alternatives like solar systems and community inverter cooperatives, to enhance the resilience of the cold-chain preventing livelihood disruption in semi-urban Nigeria. However, the study's limitations include its focus on semi-urban Abeokuta, which may not fully capture the variability of electricity challenges in other regions of Nigeria. Additionally, certain reliability measures like SAIDI/SAIFI were not thoroughly interpreted, which could affect the precision of the findings.