Solar questions Nigerians actually ask

At September 2026 prices, a small system for lights, fans, a TV and a fridge — no air conditioning — runs ₦1.4M–₦2M installed. A family home with one AC (5kVA · 10kWh lithium) is ₦3.2M–₦4.8M, a large home with two or three ACs is ₦6M–₦9.5M, and an office is ₦11M–₦20M. Where you land inside a range depends on brand tier, your roof and your city — the calculator gives you your own number instead of a bracket.

Yes. Every quote carries a labour and commissioning line of about ₦30,000 per kVA, with a floor of ₦100,000 so a small job still gets a proper installer — on the 5kVA system most families install that comes to ₦150,000 (range ₦100k – ₦300k). Mounting rails, cable, breakers, surge protection and earthing are their own line too, so nothing appears at the end that wasn't on the sheet. Transport outside Lagos, Abuja or Port Harcourt is extra and we tell you what it is.

Because Nigeria has no single distribution chain for solar: the same mid-class 5kVA hybrid runs from about ₦500,000 at an Alaba wholesaler to ₦1,000,000 in a showroom — a spread of roughly 2×. Brand tier widens it further: budget inverters start near ₦65,000 per kVA while premium ones reach ₦400,000 per kVA. Part of what we do is know which end of that spread a given model should actually sell at, so a high quote can be recognised as high.

No. It is an estimate built from Nigerian listings as of September 2026, and this equipment is imported and priced against the dollar — ₦1,385 to $1 when we checked. Before anything is agreed we confirm today's figure with the distributor and adjust for your roof, your location and anything you already own. If it moved, you hear it from us first.

A tier-1 550W mono panel was about ₦126,500 in September 2026, ranging from ₦101,750 at the wholesale floor to ₦165,000 for a single unit in a showroom. That works out to roughly ₦185–₦300 per watt, which is the number to compare panels on rather than the price per piece, since panel sizes differ. Panels are usually the smallest part of a Nigerian system bill — the battery is the big one.

Tubular is cheaper on the day and dearer over the years. One 200Ah tubular battery was about ₦200,000 (₦160,000–₦300,000), while lithium runs about ₦205,000 per kWh, so one 5.12kWh module is roughly ₦1,049,600. Size the same two-bedroom flat both ways, to the same usable energy, and the tubular bank costs ₦2,400,000 against ₦3,148,800 for lithium — but you only get half of a lead-acid bank out before you damage it, it wants electrolyte topping up, and it is a 2–4 year part against 10+ years for lithium.

Solar panels, inverters and batteries carry 0% import duty and are VAT-exempt in Nigeria, so there is no duty or VAT line hiding under our equipment prices. That exemption is on the equipment itself — services and some accessories are treated differently, and we show you exactly what is on your bill either way. If anyone adds "import duty" to a quote for panels or a battery, ask them to point at the tariff line.

For a two-bedroom flat with one 1HP AC, a fridge, a freezer, the washing machine and the ironing, our engine sizes a 5kVA inverter, 15.36kWh of lithium and 6 × 550W panels (3.3kWp) — about ₦5.23M installed (range ₦4.4M – ₦7.54M). The AC and the iron barely touch your daily energy but they are what force the inverter up a size. A one-bedroom flat with the same fridge, fans and TV but no AC at all drops to a 1.5kVA system at around ₦1.77M.

A three-bedroom flat with one 1.5HP AC, two TVs, a fridge and a freezer sizes to a 6kVA inverter, 20.48kWh of lithium and 7 × 550W panels (3.85kWp), about ₦6.71M installed. A four-bedroom house with two 1.5HP ACs, a borehole pump and the full set of appliances goes to a 10kVA inverter, 30.72kWh of lithium and 11 × 550W panels (6.05kWp) — around ₦10.3M. At that size roof space matters as much as budget, so check you have an unshaded plane before you commit.

It is set by how much energy you use in a day, not by how many rooms you have. A two-bedroom flat with one AC needs about 6 × 550W panels (3.3kWp), a three-bedroom about 7, and a lights-fans-and-TV-only home as few as 2. We work from roughly 5.5 peak sun hours a day and a 78% system efficiency, then round up to whole panels.

Yes, and it is the single most expensive thing you can ask it to do. One 1.5HP split unit on its own — nothing else connected — sizes to a 2.5kVA inverter, 5.12kWh of lithium and 3 × 550W panels (1.65kWp) at about ₦2.05M, because a compressor asks for about three times its running watts in the first second and the inverter has to carry that. Running an AC overnight on batteries costs far more than running it while the sun is up, which is why most people we quote run AC in the day and let it go at night.

Our Standard sizing plans for about 6 hours of overnight backup on your full load, which for a two-bedroom flat is 3 lithium modules — 15.36kWh — at ₦3,148,800. Budget sizing plans 4 hours and Premium 10. Battery is the most expensive part of a Nigerian system, so this is the number to think hardest about: more autonomy is more money, and cutting your night load is free.

Panels still work, just less. Cloud cuts output rather than stopping it, Harmattan dust between November and March can take a real bite until the panels are washed, and rain mostly cleans them for you. Our Standard sizing assumes the grid or your generator tops up on a genuinely bad run of days; the Premium tier adds 25% more panel capacity specifically so the batteries still refill under cloud.

Usually yes, but only if the first system is bought with that in mind — the inverter and the battery voltage decide what you can bolt on later. Adding panels is generally easy, adding battery modules is easy on lithium if you stay with the same brand and family, and changing inverter later means paying for it twice. Tell us it is phase one and we size the inverter for where you are going, not only where you are.

No. We hold no inventory and no warehouse, so we will never tell you something is "in stock" when we haven't looked. What you see here are the prices sellers were asking when we checked in September 2026. When you send an order request we ring the distributor, confirm what is actually available and what it costs today, and come back to you before anything is agreed.

No — they are listings, not quotes. Where a price shows a range, that is the real spread we saw across different sellers for the same model, and a 5kVA mid-class inverter alone ran from ₦500,000 to ₦1,000,000 depending on where you walked in. Your final figure comes after we confirm today's price with the distributor, and it includes anything the listing doesn't, like transport to your street.

Yes. Plenty of people already own an inverter and only need storage, or want to add panels to a system that runs on the grid at night. Add the single item to an order request and we source it the same way we would a full build. For very small orders we will say so if the transport makes it not worth doing through us.

Equipment can go anywhere goods move in Nigeria, and transport is quoted as its own line rather than buried in the price. We won't promise you a delivery date on this page, because it depends on the distributor, the load and your location — we give you the real figure and the real timing after we have confirmed the order with the supplier. Installation is a separate question: our labour figures are priced for Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, and outside those we tell you honestly whether we have someone.

Then you hear it from us before you pay anyone, up or down. Equipment here is imported and priced against the dollar — ₦1,385 to $1 when this catalogue was checked — so a move in the naira moves these numbers. Nothing is agreed until you have the confirmed figure in writing.

Yes, and the quote is built so you can. It is an itemised bill of materials with the size, spec and brand class of every line written out, so you can take it to any installer or vendor you already trust. Nothing on it is locked to us — if you use it to get a better price somewhere else, the quote did its job.

Insist on an itemised quote with model numbers, capacities and brands — a single lump sum is where the cheating lives. Check the seller's CAC registration, make sure the equipment warranty is registered in your name and that you are given serial numbers, and never hand over the full amount in cash to someone you can't find again. Be suspicious of a price far under the published range: a "5kVA hybrid" well below ₦500,000 is usually a smaller inverter, a rebranded one, or one that isn't really a hybrid.

You pay the market price for the equipment — the same Nigerian price we publish on the brand pages — plus the installer's labour. We do not add a fee on top of your bill, and the calculator, the quote and the advice are free. Our margin comes from the trade terms we hold with distributors, so we earn on the buying rather than by marking you up.

No. There is no checkout and no card payment anywhere on SolarBuilders.ng, and anyone asking you to pay this site by card is not us. What you send is an order request; we confirm today's price with the distributor, give you one final figure that includes workmanship, and tell you exactly who is being paid for what before any money moves.

Nigerian lenders do advertise loans that cover systems this size — on a ₦3.2M build, the longest advertised term among the 3 we list works out around ₦197,333 a month over 24 months at the lender's best advertised rate. That is an illustration from their public terms, not an offer, and reducing-balance loans cost less than the flat-rate way they usually quote. We are not a lender, a broker or a credit intermediary, we have no arrangement with any of them, and we earn nothing if you click through.

A vetted installer we put on the job and stay with. Nigeria has no licensing body for solar installers, so before anyone works on our behalf we check CAC registration, look at three past installs with photographs, call two customer references and take a written workmanship warranty. We then run the site survey with them, watch the job through photos from site, and sign a commissioning checklist before it is called done.

We won't put a date on it before the survey, because the honest answer depends on the equipment reaching you and on what the roof and wiring turn out to be. The fitting itself on a normal home system is short work; the waiting is in procurement and in the survey. You get a schedule from us after the site survey, and we would rather give you a real date late than a comfortable one early.

Two separate things: the manufacturer's warranty on the equipment, and the installer's written workmanship warranty on the labour. The equipment warranty is registered in your name, not ours, and the paperwork, serial numbers and your quote code come to you in one handover pack. Warranty terms differ by brand — we publish what each manufacturer documents on its brand page, and write "Not published" where they document nothing.

You hold the warranty paperwork and the serial numbers, so the claim is genuinely yours rather than something trapped with a middleman. In practice you tell us, and we chase the distributor and the installer on your behalf — the workmanship warranty covers the fitting, the manufacturer's covers the part. We cannot promise a repair time, because that depends on the brand's service in Nigeria, which is one of the things we consider when recommending a brand at all.

Our labour figures are priced for roof-mount work in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, and transport outside those cities is quoted separately. We are not going to claim a nationwide installer network we haven't built — ask us about your town and you get a straight yes, a "not yet", or a "we'd have to send someone and here's what that costs". Equipment itself can be sourced and sent anywhere goods move in Nigeria.

No, and most people shouldn't. Nigerian home solar is normally sized as the everyday supply, with the grid or the generator as the backstop for a bad run of cloudy days or an unusually heavy load — that is what the changeover in your quote is for. What changes is how often the generator runs: from daily to rarely, which is where the fuel saving is. If you want a system that never needs it, say so, and we size for that instead — it costs meaningfully more.

The parts age at very different rates. Panels are the longest-lived component and normally outlast everything else on the roof; a lithium battery is a 10+ year part, tubular batteries are a 2–4 year part, and the inverter sits somewhere between depending on class and how hard it is worked. So "how long does it last" is really a question about when you buy your next battery, which is why we default every quote to lithium.

Washing the panels and an annual check by someone who knows the system — that is nearly all of it, and lithium needs no electrolyte topping up or terminal cleaning the way tubular does. We don't publish a cleaning or service price, because we haven't got a sourced national figure to stand behind, and we would rather say so than invent one. The real long-run cost is the battery: about ₦1,049,600 for a 5.12kWh lithium module every 10+ years, against roughly ₦2,400,000 to replace the tubular bank that would back the same two-bedroom flat, every 2–4 years.

None of the three. We are the buyer's agent and the order desk: we publish what solar equipment really costs in Nigeria, size your system, buy the equipment on your behalf at the market price, and manage a vetted installer through to commissioning. We don't own a warehouse, we don't own a van, and we don't sell you anything at a mark-up.

From the trade terms we hold with distributors — you pay the brand's market price and our margin sits in the spread between that and what we buy at, so it comes out of the supply chain rather than out of your bill. We also earn a placement fee from installers we route work to, which is why the vetting is ours to lose. We earn nothing from the lenders we list and have no arrangement with any of them.

From about 130 priced data points we collected off live Nigerian vendor listings and 2026 market guides, last refreshed in September 2026, and every figure on this site is computed from that one table rather than typed into a page. We don't publish the vendors' phone numbers or links: knowing where to buy at what price is the work we do for you, and stale contact details help nobody. Ask us anything about a specific number and we'll tell you what it is based on.

We don't publish customer counts, testimonials or "X systems installed" numbers, because we haven't got a verified set we could show you and we are not going to invent them. Judge us instead on something checkable: the prices here are dated and sourced, the quote is itemised down to the cable, and the vetting standard for installers is written out in public. When there are real customers willing to be named, they will appear with their names on them.