NDPHC bets on solar for Kano industrial clusters in race to fix energy woes

Nigeria’s Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) is pushing into solar energy and dedicated industrial power supply as the state-owned generator seeks to break the cycle of unreliable electricity that has long hobbled the country’s manufacturers and squeezed economic growth.

Jennifer Adighije, NDPHC’s managing director, outlined the company’s strategic shift in a television appearance, saying the firm is developing a solar power project targeting industrial clusters in Kano State, Nigeria’s commercial hub in the north, that would serve as a template for similar schemes across the country.

The move marks a notable departure for a company built around gas-fired generation under the federal government’s National Integrated Power Project.

“The initiative is designed to provide dedicated and reliable electricity to manufacturing zones,” Adighije said, adding that success in Kano could accelerate rollouts to other industrial belts struggling with power shortages.

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Nigeria generates roughly 13,000 megawatts of electricity for a population of more than 200 million people, a chronic shortfall that forces businesses to spend billions of naira annually running diesel generators.

NDPHC alone controls about 4,000 megawatts of installed capacity, representing nearly 30 percent of the country’s total grid-connected generation, yet structural bottlenecks prevent much of that power from reaching consumers.

Adighije acknowledged those constraints candidly. The transmission network, she said, cannot efficiently evacuate available generation to distribution companies and end-users, a long-standing infrastructure mismatch that has frustrated successive reform efforts. Gas supply shortages compound the problem, with fuel procurement absorbing roughly 60 percent of operational costs at thermal plants.

The financial plumbing of Nigeria’s power sector is equally strained. Only about 30 percent of invoices issued across the electricity value chain are currently settled, Adighije said, creating a liquidity crunch that ripples from generators through to distribution companies and ultimately limits their capacity to invest in network improvements.

To stabilise the market, she called for the gradual removal of government subsidies embedded in electricity tariffs and the adoption of fully cost-reflective pricing, a politically sensitive prescription that successive administrations have struggled to implement. Without that shift, she argued, investor confidence will remain elusive and private capital will continue to stay on the sidelines.

NDPHC has recorded some operational wins in recent months that Adighije cited as proof that the company can improve performance within existing constraints.

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The firm recovered approximately 900 megawatts of dormant generation capacity over the past year through plant optimisation and predictive maintenance — a meaningful addition without a single new unit being built. The company also retrieved 110 abandoned containers and 216 packages of critical power equipment worth millions of dollars from Nigerian ports after prolonged customs delays, equipment it plans to deploy on incomplete generation, transmission and distribution projects.

Under a broader initiative branded “Light Up Nigeria,” NDPHC is also exploring direct supply arrangements with distribution companies and eligible industrial customers under Nigeria’s evolving regulatory framework, which has expanded following the Electricity Act of 2023. The law devolved significant power sector authority to state governments and opened new pathways for embedded and off-grid power solutions, frameworks that NDPHC appears eager to exploit.

The company is also evaluating small hydropower projects alongside solar as it works to diversify away from gas dependence, Adighije said, positioning the pivot as both an environmental and a commercial hedge against volatile fuel supply chains.