Solar panel imports drop as local production surges

Nigeria has entered a new phase of clean-energy industrialisation, as the country imported fewer finished solar panels in October 2025, while local manufacturing capacity accelerated under recent policy reforms, the Rural Electrification Agency has said.

In a statement on Sunday, the Managing Director of REA, Abba Aliyu, described the development as a “historic industrial shift,” noting that the country imported 110 megawatts of solar cells compared to 82MW of finished solar panels during the period.

Aliyu said this was the first time in Nigeria’s history that solar cell imports targeted at local assembly had surpassed the importation of fully assembled panels. According to him, this change is more than a trade statistic but “a structural signal that Nigeria is moving from buying clean-energy solutions to building them.”

“When we import finished panels, most of the value stays offshore. But when we import cells and assemble locally, 60–70 per cent of the value is created here in frames, glass, backsheets, junction boxes, encapsulation, lamination, testing, logistics, and skilled labour.

That’s how industries grow, Aliyu stated.

He noted that the milestone was recorded shortly after Nigeria hosted the inaugural Nigeria Renewable Energy Innovation Forum in October, with the theme, ‘Implementing the Nigeria First Policy.’

The REA boss added that between January and November 2025 alone, “Nigeria imported more solar cells for local manufacturing than in all previous years combined,” reflecting a level of market response that stakeholders had been working towards for years.

Aliyu stressed that the outcome was not accidental but the consequence of coordinated reforms and political will at the highest levels of government.

“This shift didn’t happen by accident. It reflects the visionary leadership of President Bola Tinubu, driving the Renewed Hope Agenda and its ‘Nigeria First Policy’, which places local content, domestic industry, and economic sovereignty at the centre of national development,” he said

He also attributed the momentum to the government’s economic reforms, which he said were restoring investor confidence, as well as ongoing interventions in the power sector under the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu.

Critically, he pointed to the catalytic impact of the NREIF, which he said played a major role in unlocking investment. “At the NREIF, chaired by the Vice President, the REA facilitated off-take commitments and catalysed nearly $500m in manufacturing and supply-chain deals,” he added.

Aliyu explained that these combined actions had created an alignment Nigeria had lacked for years, saying, “We now have clear policy direction, investor-ready reforms, institutional coordination, and a market finally responding to confidence, not chance.”

He emphasised that the progression toward clean-energy industrialisation was unfolding in real time. Recall that Nigeria recently exported solar panels to Ghana.