Solar glossary
Latent demand: what it means and why it matters
The energy a building would use if power were always available — not the energy it actually consumes today.
Why it matters in Nigeria
Nigerian consumption is suppressed by outages and fuel cost. Sizing to latent demand shows what a rooftop could serve; valuing savings against latent demand would overstate cash saved, which is why the two are kept apart.
How PureWatts measures it
Total Latent demand
sum_latent_demand_kwh_yr
Sum over the buildings in the group. Latent demand.
Sum over the buildings in the group.
Total Served
sum_served_kwh_yr
Sum over the buildings in the group. Energy actually consumed today.
Sum over the buildings in the group.
Total Unlocked (Merit-order sized)
sum_sc3_unlocked_kwh_yr
Sum over the buildings in the group. Suppressed demand the system lets the building start consuming — energy it wants but cannot currently get or afford.
Solar + battery, merit-order sized: Same engine as sc2, but the target is what the building CONSUMES today x 1.5 (MO_SIZING_UPLIFT) rather than full latent demand.
In Osun, sizing sc2 to latent demand while crediting it only with displacing current spend produced a 6x-oversized system and a negative IRR that said nothing about solar. sc3 is the fix, not an alternative opinion.
Sum over the buildings in the group.
See these numbers for your area
Every state and local government area page reports latent demand for its own rooftops. Browse the Nigeria rooftop solar data.