Nigerian Companies Exit Grid As Power Crisis Deepens

By Johnson Emmanuel

At least 11 additional major Nigerian organisations secured captive power generation permits in fourth quarter 2025, signalling a further migration away from the national grid amid worsening electricity unreliability and rising industrial energy costs. The new permit holders span manufacturing, steel, engineering, food processing, finance, and public sector institutions, including the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS).

DECISION HIGHLIGHT
Large energy-intensive and productivity-sensitive institutions are increasingly choosing capital-intensive self-generation over dependence on public electricity supply, indicating that for major corporates, private generation is now viewed as economically rational despite significant upfront costs.

DECISION MEMO
Nigeria’s electricity crisis has moved beyond infrastructure deficiency into strategic economic distortion. The latest captive generation approvals suggest that major employers no longer treat grid unreliability as a temporary operational inconvenience, but as a structural business risk requiring permanent workaround.

Particularly notable is the inclusion of the NRS among new permit holders. When a federal revenue agency opts to self-generate power for its own headquarters, it signals not merely declining private-sector confidence in the grid, but diminishing sovereign institutional confidence in state-provided utility infrastructure itself.

The sectoral spread of new captive generation entrants also indicates that the power crisis is no longer concentrated in heavy industry. While steel producers remain dominant due to energy intensity, the inclusion of bakeries, plastics manufacturers, footwear producers, and engineering firms suggests electricity unreliability is imposing economy-wide operational stress, including on light manufacturing and consumer goods production.

As Adetayo Adegbemle, Executive Director of PowerUp Nigeria, noted, “If we truly want a stable and affordable grid, a major priority should be bringing these companies back.” Yet the inverse is now occurring, more anchor demand is leaving the system, weakening grid economics further.

The broader implication is that Nigeria’s electricity market risks entering a self-reinforcing deterioration loop: as large, creditworthy consumers defect, distribution companies lose premium-paying industrial demand, reducing revenue quality and impairing reinvestment capacity, which in turn worsens system performance for remaining users.

DATA BOX
• New captive generation permits issued, Q4 2025: 11
• Combined new captive generation capacity: 130.19 megawatts
• Largest permit holder: Abuja Steel Mill Nigeria Limited, 50 MW
• Second largest: Yongxing Steel Company Limited, 45 MW
• Combined share of top two permits: Over 72 percent of total Q4 captive capacity
• Nigeria grid-connected generation: Routinely below 5,000 MW
• Estimated national demand: Above 30,000 MW
• Population served: Over 220 million people

WHO WINS / WHO LOSES
Winners: Large corporates with balance-sheet capacity to internalise power infrastructure costs, gas suppliers, embedded generation providers, captive plant EPC contractors.
Losers: Distribution companies losing high-value industrial customers, SMEs unable to finance self-generation, households left with deteriorating shared grid economics, broader manufacturing competitiveness.

POLICY SIGNALS
The continued rise in captive permits indicates that electricity sector reforms have yet to restore sufficient confidence among industrial users. It also suggests that decentralised and embedded power solutions may continue to outpace grid rehabilitation unless structural transmission and distribution reforms materially improve reliability.

INVESTOR SIGNAL
Power reliability remains one of the most significant operational due diligence issues for investors assessing Nigerian industrial, manufacturing, logistics, and processing assets. Any serious investor underwriting Nigerian productive-sector exposure must now assume independent power strategy as baseline infrastructure rather than optional contingency.

RISK RADAR
Persistent industrial grid exit may further weaken national electricity market economics, reduce distribution company collections, increase tariff pressure on remaining users, and entrench a two-tier energy economy in which only large firms can secure reliable power. Long term, this risks undermining industrial broad-basing and worsening competitiveness for smaller domestic producers.