Solar for Business: Cut Generator Hours at Your Shop, Office, School or Clinic

Solar for business means replacing generator hours with panels, an inverter and a battery sized to what your premises actually runs. It covers shops, offices, schools, clinics, churches, filling stations and small factories in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Benin City and Enugu. This site installs nothing itself; it puts you in touch with independent installers who quote the job.

The process is the same at any size: a load audit from your rating plates, a site survey for anything bigger than a small shop, then a written quote naming every model. Every price on this page is a published figure from one named source, never our quote, so get two or three comparable written quotes before you commit. Call now on +234 809 000 0000.

Start with what your gen burns, then price the litre. Fuel prices move weekly, so use the price on your last delivery note. For reference, the NBS average diesel price for May 2026 was N3,277.47 per litre, while NaijaNews reported on 10 October 2026 that Dangote raised its diesel gantry price to N1,800 per litre. Those are different measures on different dates, so do not blend them into one figure.

The sum is litres per hour x hours run x price per litre. As a petrol illustration at mid-October 2026 Lagos pump prices (N1,350 to N1,400 per litre, Vanguard, 10-11 October 2026): retailer Jamara Home says a Sumec Firman ECO4990ES runs up to 12 hours at 50% load on a 15 L tank, about 1.25 L an hour (15 / 12). So 1.25 L x 10 hours x N1,400 = N17,500 a day, or N17,500 x 26 = N455,000 over 26 trading days.

That is only one side of the comparison. The other side is the written quote, and we publish no payback period, because it depends on your hours, your load, how often light comes back, upkeep and where the naira goes next. Ask each installer to show their working using your own litres and hours.

If you also pay a NEPA bill, NERC set Band A at N209.50 per kWh from 1 July 2024 in NERC-regulated areas; Lagos retail tariffs are now under LASERC, so check your own bill. If you keep the gen as backup, ask the installer to wire the changeover, and never run a gen indoors or near windows: police suspected generator fumes after six family members died in Eleme, Rivers (Daily Trust, 13 January 2026).

Solar works hardest on loads that run while the sun is up: a shop's AC and lights, a school's classrooms, an office's computers, a church's weekday programmes. Those loads draw on panel output directly, and the battery covers dusk, evenings and the hours when light goes. A business that trades mostly at night needs a bigger battery for each kW of panels.

Here is the scale, as an illustration and not a recommendation. LG lists a 1.5 HP-class inverter split AC (12,000 BTU) at a rated cooling input of 1,090 W, so three of them is 3 x 1,090 W = 3,270 W, and over an 8-hour trading day that is 3.27 kW x 8 = about 26.2 kWh at full rated input. A 9 kW array (20 x 450 W, the panel count in Mercury Direct's listed 11 kVA package) is modelled by PVGIS at 3.83 kWh per kWp per day in Lagos, so 9 x 3.83 = about 34.5 kWh on an average day and 9 x 2.89 = about 26.0 kWh on a July day. Real draw varies and the rest of the premises adds to it, which is why a survey comes first.

To get a usable quote, have these ready for the installer:

• The rating plate of every AC, freezer, pumping machine and motor, with the hours each one runs
• A month of fuel log or delivery notes, and your last NEPA bill
• Whether your DB is single-phase or three-phase
• Photos of the roof or open ground, and where the DB and the earthing are

Your DB and the supply feeding it decide whether a single-phase or a three-phase hybrid inverter fits, so premises with three-phase motors should say so at the first call. On 14 October 2026 Zit (zit.ng) listed a Deye 8 kW three-phase hybrid inverter at N2,627,750 and a Deye 12 kW three-phase unit at N3,020,000. Those are inverter-only prices, with no battery, panels or labour.

Full-system listings show how far contents differ. In October 2026 Mercury Direct listed an 11 kVA hybrid with 15 kWh of lithium and 20 x 450 W panels at N9,538,000, and SMK Solar listed an 11 kVA system with 18 kWh of lithium and 12 x 600 W panels at N5,939,000. BusinessDay (17 February 2026) put commercial systems of 10 kW and above at N10 million to N50 million or more, and SustifyHomes (August 2026) put a 10 kVA hybrid at N7 million to N12 million. None of these is our quote, and prices move with the naira.

Larger systems are quoted after a site survey, not from a phone call. NEMSA guidelines as reported in April 2026 list the checks a competent installer works through:

• A load assessment first
• A sound roof and sound mounts
• DC and AC isolators, breakers or fuses, and surge protection
• Earthing
• Batteries ventilated and kept away from living areas and heat, with a battery management system on lithium
• Cables in conduit

Ask every installer to write the following into the quote, so a buyer or a finance officer can compare like with like:

• Inverter model, with kVA and kW both stated (a 5 kVA inverter at 0.8 power factor carries 4 kW of real load, so read the kW figure on the datasheet)
• Battery chemistry, model, kWh and the manufacturer-stated cycle figure at its stated depth of discharge (for example, Felicity states 6000 cycles at 80% DoD for its LPBF48100-A lithium battery; Luminous states up to 1500 cycles at 80% DoD for its LPT 1240H tubular)
• Panel model, wattage, count and warranty, plus the charge controller if it is separate
• The protective devices listed above, and what installation includes and excludes
• The VAT treatment, and warranty terms in writing from the maker or distributor

Ask for the installer's NEMSA competency certificate and look the name up in NEMSA's directory (nemsa.gov.ng/directory/) or on its verification page (nemsa.gov.ng/verification/). Industry experts quoted by NAN (via Peoples Gazette, 8 July 2026) say batteries, inverters, panels, charge controllers and cables are the most counterfeited items, so check serial numbers, QR codes and warranty papers, and buy from authorised dealers. Keep every receipt, since the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2018 gives a right to return goods that do not match the agreed specification (s 122, as quoted by Templars, June 2025).

Then plan upkeep. SustifyHomes, a quote marketplace, listed a maintenance visit at N25,000 to N60,000 in its August 2026 home guide, covering panel cleaning, torque checks, firmware and a health report; a larger business array may differ. A Maiduguri field test found more than 50% loss in power output after 14 days of continuous dust deposition and advised weekly cleaning in intense dust, but no measured figure exists for the six cities we cover, so ask the installer to write down the visit schedule and the cleaning plan. For a system that already trips, see solar and inverter repair.