Open data
Nigeria rooftop solar data: every state, every local government area
We modelled every mapped building in Nigeria. 70,767,755 carry a viable rooftop, together holding 957 GWp of roof capacity and spending ₦28.9tn a year on grid power and generator fuel. Pick a theme below, or jump straight to a state.
The rooftops
How many buildings carry a usable roof, how much area that is, and what it could hold in panels.
70,767,755
957 GWp
4,277 km² usable roof
₦28.9tn/yr
23.6 TWh/yr from generators
5.6 yr
Median IRR 19% (cash saved)
What Nigeria spends
Grid tariff and generator fuel side by side, and what a solar build would cost against them.
Three ways to size Nigeria's rooftops
Solar + battery. The default headline scenario, and the one the SEO fact base quotes. Prices the energy a full solar+storage system would deliver.
Read with care: Sized to LATENT demand — the energy the building would use if it could. Against a cash baseline that only reflects today's spend this looks oversized; that is what sc3 exists to fix.
- System size
- 109 GWp
- Capital cost
- ₦109tn
- Year 1 savings
- ₦84.8tn/yr
- NPV
- ₦659tn
- Median IRR
- 91%
- Median payback
- 1.1 yr
What solar saves
Two honest approaches: cash a building stops paying, and the value of the energy it could unlock.
Cash saved
What these buildings stop paying — merit order, capped at current spend.
Energy value (upper bracket)
What the energy is worth if full latent demand were met. Not cash saved.
Returns and payback
How the payback, IRR and independence outcomes spread across the modelled population.
What a delivered unit costs, by DisCo
Grid tariff plus the generator running that fills the gap, blended across every building the DisCo serves. Ranked most expensive first — the higher the all-in rate, the stronger the case for solar.
Loading the league table…
Ikeja and Eko are reported together as Lagos. Rates are modelled blends of billed grid energy and generator running, not published tariffs.
The odds a rooftop in Nigeria pays back quickly
Of the 69,441,950 buildings in Nigeria with a modelled payback, 45.9% pay back inside five years and 17.1% inside three.
Payback under 5 years
45.9%
Payback under 3 years
17.1%
IRR above 20%
48.3%
Coverage: 98% of buildings in Nigeria produced a payback figure. Buildings with no viable scenario are excluded rather than counted as zero.
How much of Nigeria's demand actually gets met
Buildings in Nigeria consume 55.6 TWh/yr but want 79.7 TWh/yr. The 30% they cannot buy is suppressed demand — load that appears the moment supply is reliable.
Energy wanted
79.7 TWh/yr
Energy consumed
55.6 TWh/yr
Unmet demand
24.1 TWh/yr
Modelled latent demand, not metered consumption. It is the load buildings would run given affordable, available supply.
How many rooftops in Nigeria actually pay
Counted building by building on the cash-saved basis (merit-order sized, valued against what the building spends today), not read off an average. Shares are of the 69,441,950 buildings with a modelled result out of 70,767,755 in Nigeria. 40,147,608 clear a positive NPV.
Payback
Return (IRR)
Who uses what
The same population cut three ways — by how a building uses power, how big its roof is, and where it sits.
Load profile
| Segment | Buildings | With generator | Spend ₦/yr | Cash saved yr 1 (B) | Median IRR | Median payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Residential | 68,324,226 | 11,949,742 | ₦19.5tn | ₦18.2tn | 19% | 5.9 yr |
| Commercial General | 1,020,754 | 510,088 | ₦3.88tn | ₦3.82tn | 37% | 2.9 yr |
| Commercial Retail | 785,481 | 338,456 | ₦130bn | ₦130bn | 37% | 2.9 yr |
| Anchor | 340,171 | 223,167 | ₦4.82tn | ₦4.56tn | 51% | 2.1 yr |
| Worship | 174,962 | 120,428 | ₦148bn | ₦147bn | 53% | 2.1 yr |
| Industrial | 69,816 | 41,704 | ₦247bn | ₦243bn | 45% | 2.4 yr |
| Hospitality | 26,181 | 9,629 | ₦175bn | ₦163bn | 35% | 3.1 yr |
| Filling Station | 9,532 | 4,577 | ₦12bn | ₦12bn | 37% | 2.9 yr |
| Productive Use | 8,665 | 5,460 | ₦7.88bn | ₦7.87bn | 47% | 2.4 yr |
| Mall Retail | 6,594 | 2,097 | ₦27.3bn | ₦26.8bn | 35% | 3.1 yr |
| Automotive | 1,373 | 466 | ₦2.49bn | ₦2.49bn | 31% | 3.4 yr |
Roof size band
| Segment | Buildings | With generator | Spend ₦/yr | Cash saved yr 1 (B) | Median IRR | Median payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 30m2 | 30,067,623 | 3,300,513 | ₦439bn | ₦424bn | 5% | 15.6 yr |
| 100 250m2 | 12,612,979 | 3,934,990 | ₦9.13tn | ₦8.62tn | 27% | 4.1 yr |
| 50 100m2 | 12,593,347 | 2,564,475 | ₦2.03tn | ₦1.91tn | 25% | 4.1 yr |
| 30 50m2 | 11,614,322 | 1,863,772 | ₦564bn | ₦533bn | 15% | 6.6 yr |
| 250 1000m2 | 3,775,458 | 1,491,503 | ₦11.4tn | ₦10.8tn | 29% | 3.6 yr |
| Over 1000m2 | 104,026 | 50,561 | ₦5.34tn | ₦5.04tn | 35% | 3.1 yr |
Settlement type
| Segment | Buildings | With generator | Spend ₦/yr | Cash saved yr 1 (B) | Median IRR | Median payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Urban Centre | 25,026,061 | 6,717,278 | ₦12.1tn | ₦11.7tn | 25% | 4.4 yr |
| Unclassified | 16,574,826 | 1,189,270 | ₦4.59tn | ₦4.04tn | 5% | 15.9 yr |
| Urban | 15,140,608 | 2,895,832 | ₦6.68tn | ₦6.31tn | 15% | 6.6 yr |
| Dense Urban | 7,213,137 | 1,618,774 | ₦3.66tn | ₦3.47tn | 23% | 4.6 yr |
| Rural | 6,632,053 | 776,551 | ₦1.93tn | ₦1.72tn | 9% | 9.6 yr |
| (Unset) | 181,070 | 8,109 | ₦12.1bn | ₦10.5bn | 15% | 6.9 yr |
What kit costs
Median advertised Nigerian hardware prices from our monthly market survey.
What hardware costs right now
Median advertised rates from our Nigerian market tracker — the same prices used to cost a system in Nigeria.
Solar panels
₦250
₦/W
Inverters
₦127,419
₦/kVA
Batteries
₦177,500
₦/kWh
Browse by place
Every state has its own page, and every state page carries its local government areas.