Sci-Tech & Solution

How much does a Solar panel cost in Nigeria?

by Felix Okoli  

Solar panels

It's no longer news that electricity supply in Nigeria is still inefficient. A report from Nigeria's power minister indicates that it's going to take a long time for the nation's power sector to be able to provide sufficient electricity for the over 100 million people living in West Africa.

As at now, public electricity supply in Nigeria only covers less than 30% of Nigerian homes and it's still not on a full time basis. It may very well take another 50 years to achieve this and many in this generation might not live to see it. Nigeria doesn't have nuclear plants yet and there don't seem to be any plans to invest in that any time soon but Nigeria's power sector is mostly powered by Water Dams around the country which generate what we call Hydro-electricity. Nigeria is looking to totally privatize the power sector which has been working effectively despite the billions of dollars already invested in it.

Nigeria is looking for alternative sources of generating electricity that can easily be managed and is considered green enough given that it's the common trend now in the modern world.

One of the ways through which Nigeria hopes to generate power is through Solar energy. However, there is no major solar plant yet in Nigeria that supplies electricity to homes like is obtainable in countries like the USA or Japan but the government is hoping that investors from China and USA will be able to include this when they setup their own power industries.

Given the situation in the country, it is mostly common for people now to generate their own electricity. May Nigerians living in cities are forced to generate their own electricity since they are even lucky to have power for at least 4 hrs in a day.

When it comes to using Solar systems to generate electricity, most Nigerians who are a bit tech savvy would know that one of the main things they'll need is a solar panel. However, the truth is that most Nigerians don't know the price of Solar panels being sold locally or where they can get a really good one. Some also don't know that some solar panels are of higher quality than others.

What is the price of Solar panels in Nigeria?
Well, based on what I've seen, Solar panels tend to vary in price as it depends on a lot of things such as the manufacturer's production cost, the shipping cost, exchange rate, custom duty fees, the quality, the size and so on.

A smaller solar panel would be much cheaper than a large one. A locally manufacture one would be much cheaper than an imported one. However, since Nigeria for now doesn't manufacture Solar panels, you'd find that most Solar panels in the market are normally imported and these come from countries like the USA and China. It's actually cheaper for Nigerians to buy Solar panels from China than from the USA however it seems most USA made Solar panels are mostly of higher quality than the ones you can get from China.

There are many companies in Nigeria that sell Solar panels and they source for such products from different markets and so when they add up their costs of getting it to Nigeria, they could arrive at varying prices.

Since the price of Solar panels tend to vary in Nigeria, I think the main question should be - "How cheap could solar panel sell for in Nigeria"?

Based on what I know, Solar panels used for charging mobile phones batteries are much cheaper than the ones used for charging laptop batteries. Hence, the ones used to power 12v deep cycle batteries at home to power things like your TV seem to cost the most.

Personally, I use a Foldable Solar panel which I hang on my window facing the Sun and this cost me $60(about N10200). I've also seen Solar mobile chargers which are meant for just charging mobile phone batteries and those ones cost about $30(N5100). In order to power my TV with a Solar panel, I would probably need a 100 Watt Solar energy and that costs about in the Nigerian market.

The bottom-line is that the Solar panel you'll need would depend on how much power you need. Solar panels are categorized based on their power output. A 100 Watt Solar panel will cost more than a 10 Watt Solar panel and it continues like that.

One of the first things to calculate before deciding on the type of Solar panels you want to buy is the Watt-Hours. This is basically a calculation you get by multiplying your Watt(Power) requirement by the number of hours you want those Watts.

Let's assume you want to power your TV with a Solar panel, one of the first things you'd need to find out is the power requirement for your TV. You can look at the back of your tv to confirm it. Let's assume it is 300 watts and you need to power it for at least 4 hrs. It then means that the Watt-Hours is 1200WH.

The next steps is to finding a Solar panel that can supply at least 1200 Watt-hrs and this power is normally going to be stored in a deep cycle batery.

Solar Panel Power = 1200WH/(4hrs*0.85) (where 0.85 is a common factor that allows for natural heat loss)

Solar Panel Power = 353 Watts or just 400 watts

You can simply get a single 400 Watt Solar panel unit, 4 units of 100 Watts Solar panels or 2 units of 200 watt Solar panels.

You are also going to need a battery to Store the power which the Solar energy has generated and a 12V Deep cycle battery would do. Based on our power requirements of 1200WH, a 100AH 12V battery will be able to supply a total of 1200AH for the 4 hrs.

So, to power a TV that has a 300w requirement every hour for 4 hrs, a 400 watt solar panel and 100AH 12V battery could do the trick. If the TV needs only 200 watt and you've got a Pay TV decoder that needs only 100 Watts, the power supply system used can still be ok.

So, what's the price of Solar panels in Nigeria? Well it is really hard to say since there are few online sellers in the market. It shows that Solar panels are really scarce in the market as one is more likely to only find smaller solar panels than larger ones. Small solar panels are more common in Nigeria and normally used for charging smaller solar devices like mobile phones and tablets.

I've checked at several online shopping sites in Nigeria and also on pages of Nigerian newspapers but there are no listed prices for large solar panels like in 100 Watts and above.

One might be able to easily find Solar embedded products in Nigeria than large stand alone solar panels. You'd be able to easily see things like Solar laptops, Solar mobile chargers, Solar TVs and so on. There are larger solar panels in the market but it's not in abundance as it seems not many people are importing it into Nigeria yet perhaps because Nigerians might not yet be willing to buy them at a high price.

Based on my estimation, the price of a 100 Watt Solar panel in Nigeria would be about $295(N50,000). It costs more as the number of Watts increase. Solar mobile chargers ore the cheapest and it can cost as little as $18(N3000) per unit.