Nigeria rooftop solar data
Rooftop solar in Benue State: buildings, spend and payback
3,297,881 buildings in Benue State carry a viable rooftop. Together they spend ₦621bn a year on grid power and generator fuel, and 85% of them run a generator.
3,297,881
122m m²
27m kWp of roof capacity
₦621bn/yr
574m kWh/yr from generators
2.1 yr
Median IRR 53% (cash saved)
The savings bracket for Benue
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.
Three ways to size Benue State'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
- 4.27m kWp
- Capital cost
- ₦4.04tn
- Year 1 savings
- ₦4.03tn/yr
- NPV
- ₦32.4tn
- Median IRR
- 121%
- Median payback
- 0.9 yr
How many rooftops in Benue State 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. 3,297,881 of 3,297,881 clear a positive NPV.
Payback
Return (IRR)
What hardware costs right now
Median advertised rates from our Nigerian market tracker — the same prices used to cost a system in Benue State.
Solar panels
₦250
₦/W
Inverters
₦127,419
₦/kVA
Batteries
₦177,500
₦/kWh
Where the opportunity sits
Load profile
| Segment | Buildings | With generator | Spend ₦/yr | Cash saved yr 1 (B) | Median IRR | Median payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Residential | 3,210,654 | 2,746,376 | ₦449bn | ₦445bn | 53% | 1.9 yr |
| Commercial Retail | 33,787 | 13,640 | ₦2.49bn | ₦2.49bn | 25% | 4.6 yr |
| Commercial General | 31,261 | 17,016 | ₦56.8bn | ₦56bn | 27% | 3.9 yr |
| Anchor | 11,326 | 9,625 | ₦103bn | ₦99.7bn | 53% | 1.9 yr |
| Worship | 8,249 | 7,475 | ₦5.44bn | ₦5.44bn | 51% | 2.1 yr |
| Industrial | 1,728 | 1,531 | ₦1.62bn | ₦1.61bn | 55% | 1.9 yr |
| Hospitality | 456 | 222 | ₦1.62bn | ₦1.62bn | 23% | 4.6 yr |
| Productive Use | 340 | 316 | ₦292m | ₦292m | 59% | 1.9 yr |
| Mall Retail | 51 | 9 | ₦21.5m | ₦21.4m | 23% | 4.6 yr |
| Filling Station | 27 | 0 | ₦14.7m | ₦14.7m | 23% | 4.6 yr |
| Automotive | 2 | 0 | ₦330k | ₦330k | 21% | 5.4 yr |
Roof size band
| Segment | Buildings | With generator | Spend ₦/yr | Cash saved yr 1 (B) | Median IRR | Median payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 30m2 | 2,071,808 | 1,843,400 | ₦31.6bn | ₦31.5bn | 53% | 2.1 yr |
| 50 100m2 | 446,417 | 350,795 | ₦101bn | ₦100bn | 55% | 1.9 yr |
| 30 50m2 | 364,730 | 304,297 | ₦19.9bn | ₦19.8bn | 55% | 1.9 yr |
| 100 250m2 | 351,981 | 251,277 | ₦218bn | ₦215bn | 55% | 1.9 yr |
| 250 1000m2 | 59,472 | 43,349 | ₦153bn | ₦150bn | 57% | 1.9 yr |
| Over 1000m2 | 3,473 | 3,092 | ₦97.9bn | ₦94.7bn | 65% | 1.6 yr |
Settlement type
| Segment | Buildings | With generator | Spend ₦/yr | Cash saved yr 1 (B) | Median IRR | Median payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unclassified | 1,216,971 | 1,203,675 | ₦230bn | ₦226bn | 55% | 1.9 yr |
| Urban | 1,116,076 | 1,055,014 | ₦202bn | ₦201bn | 57% | 1.9 yr |
| Urban Centre | 421,289 | 106,988 | ₦68.8bn | ₦66.2bn | 17% | 6.1 yr |
| Dense Urban | 285,146 | 172,423 | ₦44.4bn | ₦44.3bn | 35% | 3.1 yr |
| Rural | 258,399 | 258,110 | ₦75.5bn | ₦74.8bn | 63% | 1.6 yr |
Lead segment
| Segment | Buildings | With generator | Spend ₦/yr | Cash saved yr 1 (B) | Median IRR | Median payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | 3,264,650 | 2,776,747 | ₦476bn | ₦471bn | 53% | 1.9 yr |
| SME High | 20,699 | 8,689 | ₦41.2bn | ₦40.4bn | 25% | 4.6 yr |
| Enterprise | 12,532 | 10,774 | ₦104bn | ₦101bn | 55% | 1.9 yr |
Demand tier
| Segment | Buildings | With generator | Spend ₦/yr | Cash saved yr 1 (B) | Median IRR | Median payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.0 | 2,105,215 | 1,958,123 | ₦32.7bn | ₦32.7bn | — | — |
| 2.0 | 456,392 | 332,756 | ₦157bn | ₦154bn | — | — |
| 3.0 | 331,951 | 246,041 | ₦331bn | ₦325bn | — | — |
| 1.0 | 273,874 | 232,802 | ₦50.4bn | ₦50.1bn | — | — |
| 4.0 | 120,533 | 24,358 | ₦30.9bn | ₦30bn | — | — |
| 5.0 | 8,644 | 1,765 | ₦10.7bn | ₦10.7bn | — | — |
| 6.0 | 1,272 | 365 | ₦8.87bn | ₦8.82bn | — | — |
Local government areas in Benue
How these numbers are produced
Approach A — energy value (upper bracket)
Sizes the system to the building's full latent demand and values that energy at the mixed grid/generator tariff. It answers what the energy is worth — not what anyone currently pays.
Approach B — cash saved (lower bracket)
Sizes the system to demand that is actually served today, values it by merit order (solar displaces generator kWh first) and caps it at current spend. It answers what a building stops paying.
Cohort: Viable rooftops (≥0.6 kWp potential).
- Demand is modelled latent demand, not metered consumption.
- Fuel is priced at ₦1,800/litre (operator-set). NBS reported ₦3,277/litre for May 2026 — on that basis every naira figure here is roughly 1.8× understated.
- Generator ownership is a model output, not a survey result: it follows from the grid-availability scale and the 25% demand-suppression assumption.
- Approach A prices energy nobody currently buys. Its savings must never be read as cash saved.
- Demand is MODELLED LATENT demand, not metered consumption.
- Generator ownership is model output, not survey.
- Medians do not combine across groups — re-derive from the histograms.
- Per-building files are float32 with 4 significant figures; cast to float64 before summing, because polars keeps Float32 sums in Float32.
- Null scenario fields mean the roof cannot host 0.6 kWp, not zero savings.
- `genset` was previously named `diesel` and now uses the segment's real fuel.
- Ordering holds by construction: grid savings < mixed < genset.