Searching for the solar generator price in Nigeria turns up a N320,000 box and a N5.5 million system under the same word, “solar”. They are not the same product. Buy the wrong one and you end up with a unit that cannot carry the AC you bought it for.
This guide puts the two side by side using prices that named Lagos sellers listed in October 2026. Then it shows what each will realistically run, so you can ask installers for the right quote.
One warning before the numbers. Every price here is what one seller listed, not a quote from this site, and naira prices move. Mobility.com.ng wrote in June 2026 that a panel priced at N120,000 today can jump to N140,000 a month later because of the exchange rate. A current written quote is the only real number.
If you already know your budget and want to compare, ask for written quotes from independent solar installers. An independent installer will survey your place, quote, and contract with you directly. This site does not install or sell anything.
Solar Generator Price in Nigeria: What Portable Units Cost Today
A “solar generator” is a battery and an inverter in one box, with sockets on the side. You plug appliances in, and panels are either sold with it or added separately. These are the October 2026 listings we found:
- itel Power Tank 1000 (1,000 W AC output, 2,000 Wh lithium): N629,200 on itelsolar.com. With two 620 W panels the bundle is N979,200.
- Itel Energy 500 W, 1,000 Wh all-in-one: N320,000 at Nature Solar.
- Sun King PowerPlay Pro (600 W inverter, 800 Wh LFP battery): N887,000 upfront, or N45,000 down plus N18,000 a week for 80 weeks.
Look at that last one again. N45,000 plus 80 x N18,000 comes to N1,485,000, about 1.7 times the upfront price. That is simple arithmetic on Sun King’s own figures, and it is the cost of paying weekly, not a hidden charge.
What will these run? Think of what the box can deliver. The itel unit holds 2,000 Wh and puts out up to 1,000 W. Divide 2,000 by 1,000 and you get two hours at full output, at best, because some energy is lost in conversion. Light loads such as phones, a fan, a TV, lights and a laptop can run for hours. A power station does not replace a wired-in system for a fridge, a pumping machine or an AC.
On AC, LG lists its 9,000 BTU inverter split unit (the 1 HP class) at 1,000 W rated cooling input, and the 12,000 BTU unit (1.5 HP class) at 1,090 W rated, 1,350 W maximum. So a 1,000 W power station is at or below the rated draw of a single AC, before the start-up surge. We are not publishing wattages for fans, TVs or fridges because we have no verified source. Check the rating plate on each appliance.
What a Full Inverter System Costs, and What Is in the Box
A full system is a hybrid inverter, a battery bank and a panel array, wired into your distribution board (DB) through a changeover or a transfer arrangement. A qualified person does that wiring, on site, and it usually means switching your supply off for a while. It is not a job for a weekend with YouTube.
Published October 2026 package prices from Lagos sellers put a 3.5 kVA lithium system with panels at roughly N3.1 to N3.4 million. A 5 kVA-class system with 10 kWh of lithium and panels comes to about N5 to N5.5 million. These are the packages behind that statement:
- SMK Solar: 3.5 kVA inverter, 5 kWh lithium battery and 6 x 450 W panels, N3,121,000. The page lists “installation accessories”, so do not assume labour is included.
- Mercury Direct: 3.5 kVA hybrid, 5 kWh LiFePO4 and 8 x 450 W panels (3.6 kW), installation included, N3,400,000.
- SMK Solar: 8.5 kVA hybrid, 10 kWh lithium and 10 x 590 W panels, installation and Lagos delivery included, N5,059,000.
- Mercury Direct: 5.5 kVA hybrid (sold as “5kVA”), 10 kWh LiFePO4 and 16 x 450 W panels (7.2 kW), installation included, N5,538,000.
Smaller complete systems exist too. Sun King listed its PowerHub Core (2 kVA, 2.5 kWh LFP battery, up to 4 x 450 W panels, installation included) at N2,411,000. Mercury Direct still listed an older lead-acid package, a 1.5 kVA inverter with 4 x 300 W panels and one 200Ah battery, at N1,558,000, with installation not stated. Both are well below the 3.5 kVA class in what they can carry, so check them against your load list.
Do not blend these into one “average cost”. The battery size, panel count and whether installation is included all differ, and each changes the price. BusinessDay’s 17 February 2026 cost guide gives wider ranges: N2 to N3 million for 3 to 4 kVA, N3.5 to N5.5 million for 5 to 8 kVA, and N150,000 to N800,000 for professional installation alone. It puts the battery at 35 to 45 percent of system cost, panels at 25 to 30 percent and the inverter at 20 to 25 percent.
Two more things to read on any quote. First, warranty. SMK’s 3.5 kVA package page lists 18 months on the hybrid inverter, 5 years on the lithium battery and 10 years on panels. Mercury’s product pages say 12 months. itel states 3 years on its hybrid inverters. Same price band, very different paper.
Second, kVA is not kW. Real power in kW equals kVA times the power factor, so a 5 kVA inverter at 0.8 power factor carries 4 kW of real load. Read the kW figure on the inverter’s own datasheet. For a deeper look at sizing, see our 5 kVA inverter, panels and batteries guide, and for how installer quotes for these jobs work, see inverter and battery installation.
Side by Side: What Each Costs and What It Will Run
| Option | Listed price (seller, October 2026) | What is in it | Realistic job |
|---|---|---|---|
| Itel Energy 500 W / 1,000 Wh | N320,000 (Nature Solar) | Battery and inverter in one box | Phone, fan, TV, lights |
| itel Power Tank 1000 | N629,200 (itelsolar.com) | 1,000 W AC, 2,000 Wh lithium, no panels | Light loads for hours; under one AC’s rated draw |
| itel Power Tank 1000 + 2 x 620 W | N979,200 (itelsolar.com) | As above, with two panels | Same loads, with a way to recharge by day |
| SMK 3.5 kVA package | N3,121,000 (SMK Solar) | 5 kWh lithium, 6 x 450 W panels | Whole-house circuits chosen by an installer |
| Mercury 3.5 kVA package | N3,400,000 (Mercury Direct) | 5 kWh LiFePO4, 8 x 450 W, installation included | Same, with labour inside the price |
| Mercury 5.5 kVA package | N5,538,000 (Mercury Direct) | 10 kWh LiFePO4, 16 x 450 W, installation included | Larger loads, such as AC plus pumping machine, after a load audit |
Read the table this way: a solar generator is a convenience product and an inverter system is a house product. The first costs less because it does less. The second can feed your fridge, pumping machine and AC circuits, but only after an installer has measured what you actually run.
A quick sizing illustration for panels, using PVGIS-SARAH2 data for 1 kWp with 14 percent system losses. In Lagos, 3.6 kW of panels at 3.83 kWh per kWp per day gives about 13.8 kWh on an average day. On a July day, at 2.89 kWh per kWp, it gives about 10.4 kWh. Output is highest in the dry months and lowest in the rains, and these are model figures before dust.
If your list of “must run” appliances is longer than a phone and a fan, request written quotes and have each installer put the load audit on paper.
Three Examples: Who Needs Which
These are anonymised illustrations, not real customers. The costs are worked from the figures above.
A duplex in Lekki with a petrol gen every evening. Say the family runs a 3 kVA-class petrol generator for five hours each evening. The Sumec Firman ECO4990ES, a 3.0 kVA unit, is stated to run up to 12 hours at 50 percent load on a 15 litre tank, which works out to about 1.25 litres an hour. At the Lagos pump price of N1,400 a litre reported on 10 to 11 October 2026, that is 1.25 x 5 x N1,400 = N8,750 a day. Over 30 days it is N262,500. Treat this as an illustration at mid-October 2026 pump prices. It leaves out servicing and the cost of the gen itself.
A portable unit does not fit this household. Their load is AC, fridge and lights, which is a wired-in job. The realistic comparison is a 3.5 kVA to 5 kVA hybrid system with lithium. Even then, a 5 kWh battery feeding one 1 HP AC at its rated 1,000 W is a ceiling of about five hours, less in practice. The installer’s load audit decides whether 5 kWh or 10 kWh is right, and the AC is usually what sets that.
A Gwarinpa flat with a 2018 inverter and two tubular batteries that die by 2am. The batteries are the likely problem. BusinessDay says lead-acid batteries last only three to five years, and if these came with the inverter, they are eight years old. The upgrade questions here are about the battery, not about buying a power station.
SMK lists a 3.5 kVA inverter with two 220Ah tubular batteries at N1,382,000, and the same inverter with a 5 kWh lithium battery at N1,947,000. The difference is N565,000. Manufacturers’ own figures show why people pay it: the Felicity LPBF48100-A 5 kWh lithium battery manual states 6,000 cycles at 80 percent depth of discharge, and Luminous states up to 1,500 cycles at 80 percent for its LPT 1240H tubular. That is four times the cycles, on each maker’s own test conditions, not tested by us. Our lithium versus tubular battery comparison goes through the trade-offs.
Gwarinpa is in Abuja, well north of Lagos, and NiMet bulletins describe harmattan haze reaching the north first and the south later and more lightly. A field test in Maiduguri found more than 50 percent loss in power output in under 14 days of continuous dust deposition, a worst case. There is no measured figure for Abuja, so ask any installer how panels will be cleaned.
A pharmacy in Rumuola paying for diesel daily. Fuel prices swing so much between sources that we will not put one figure on it. Pull your own diesel receipts for the last 30 days and give them to the installer. A shop like this needs a wired-in system sized for the fridge and lights, not a plug-in box.
Port Harcourt is also the weakest of the six cities for sun. PVGIS gives 3.48 kWh per kWp per day on average against Abuja’s 4.20 (Abuja yields about 21 percent more), and July drops to 2.52. A sensible installer will say whether the generator stays as a backup on the rainiest weeks.
How to Compare Solar Generator and Inverter System Quotes
Get two or three written quotes that list the exact inverter, battery and panel models. If a quote says only “5 kVA inverter, lithium battery, panels”, it cannot be compared with anything.
Then check these:
- Installer credentials. NEMSA guidelines, as reported in April 2026 by TheNigeriaLawyer, say rooftop solar PV must be installed only by NEMSA-certified electrical contractors. Ask for the competency certificate and look the installer up in NEMSA’s Directory of Certified Electrical Contractors.
- Counterfeits. Industry experts quoted by NAN in July 2026 said batteries, inverters, panels, charge controllers and cables are the most faked items, and that fake batteries and inverters carry the biggest fire risk. These are industry views, not a regulator warning. Check serial numbers, QR codes and warranty papers, and buy from authorised dealers.
- Paper. Put the exact models, warranty terms and VAT treatment on the quote, and keep your receipts. The Nigeria Tax Act 2025 is reported to treat solar equipment as VAT-exempt or zero-rated, though sources disagree on the label, so ask the installer to show the VAT treatment. The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2018 gives a right to return goods that do not match the agreed specification.
- Site conditions. Roof strength, shade, earthing and where the batteries sit all depend on your building. An installer who quotes without visiting is guessing.
Also, a home cannot sell power back to the grid today. NERC’s 2026 net billing rules start at 50 kWp, far above a home system. Judge a system only on what it runs for you.
Whichever you choose, never run a petrol generator indoors or near a window. Police in Rivers State suspected generator fumes in a family’s deaths in Eleme in January 2026.
For panel costs on their own, see our solar panel price guide. For the full-system route, see home solar installation. When you are ready, ask for written quotes or call +234 809 000 0000.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a solar generator cost in Nigeria?
In October 2026, listings we found ran from N320,000 for a 1,000 Wh unit at Nature Solar to N629,200 for the itel Power Tank 1000 and N887,000 for the Sun King PowerPlay Pro. Those are single-seller prices, and they move with the naira. Get a current written quote.
Can a solar generator run my AC, fridge or pumping machine?
A power station suits light loads such as phones, fans, a TV and lights. A 1,000 W unit sits at or below the rated draw of one 1 HP AC (1,000 W per LG), before start-up surge. For a fridge, pumping machine or AC, ask an installer for a load audit from your appliances’ rating plates.
How do I know an installer is qualified?
Ask for their NEMSA competency certificate and look them up on NEMSA’s directory and verification pages at nemsa.gov.ng. Be wary of anyone who quotes without a site visit or will not list exact model names.
Can I pay for a solar system in instalments?
Some sellers offer it. Sun King’s PowerHub Core, a 2 kVA system, is N2,411,000 upfront or N121,000 down plus N49,000 a week for 80 weeks. That totals N4,041,000, about 1.7 times the upfront price. Read the full total before you sign.