Nigerian manufacturers spent an estimated ₦1.35 trillion on alternative power in 2025, according to the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria. The bill exposes a deeper industrial problem: factories are committing capital simply to secure the electricity required to produce, before raw materials, financing, labour and logistics enter the equation.
Nigeria’s manufacturers are paying twice for electricity infrastructure.
They need power to manufacture.
But unreliable supply means many also have to finance the systems that keep that power available.
The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria says manufacturers spent approximately ₦1.35 trillion on alternative energy in 2025, compared with about ₦1.11 trillion in 2024.
On that reported basis, the increase is approximately ₦240 billion, or about 21.6%.
Some MAN-based reporting rounds the 2025 figure to ₦1.34 trillion, so the exact percentage varies slightly depending on the rounded figures used. The controlling series in this story is ₦1.35 trillion versus ₦1.11 trillion.
The scale matters because this is not expenditure on new production lines or additional factory capacity.
It is expenditure manufacturers say they incurred securing alternative electricity to keep production operating.
The result is an industrial economy in which the factory increasingly has to function as its own utility.
About ₦1.35tn went into alternative power
The estimate was disclosed earlier in 2026 by a Manufacturers Association of Nigeria official and repeated again in October by MAN President Francis Meshioye at the association’s Annual General Meeting and Made-in-Nigeria Exhibition.
MAN put the comparable 2024 alternative-energy expenditure at ₦1.11 trillion.
The association argues that the increase reflects the continuing cost of unreliable electricity supply and manufacturers’ dependence on alternatives to the grid.
The number should be treated carefully.
It is an industry estimate attributed to MAN.
It is not the same thing as audited consolidated electricity expenditure covering every manufacturing company operating in Nigeria.
And “alternative energy” is a broader category than diesel or generator fuel alone.
Even within that limitation, the estimate gives a measure of the infrastructure burden manufacturers say they are carrying.
Alternative power is an industrial competitiveness problem
Electricity is not merely another factory input.
Without it, machinery stops.
Production time disappears.
Orders can be delayed.
And installed manufacturing capacity cannot be used efficiently.
When grid electricity is insufficient or unreliable, a manufacturer has to decide whether to interrupt production or secure another power source.
That transfers part of the electricity-infrastructure problem directly onto the company’s cost base.
Alternative arrangements can keep production running.
But the money committed to those systems competes with other uses of capital.
A naira spent maintaining power availability cannot simultaneously finance another machine, additional inventory, product development or expansion.
That is the opportunity cost behind MAN’s ₦1.35 trillion estimate.
The burden grew even as manufacturers searched for cheaper energy
The reported increase from ₦1.11 trillion to ₦1.35 trillion means alternative-energy expenditure rose by about ₦240 billion between the two annual estimates.
That increase matters even where the price of a particular fuel source may decline.
A manufacturer’s total alternative-power bill depends on more than one fuel price.
It can also reflect the amount of alternative electricity required, gas and fuel consumption, operation and maintenance, captive-generation infrastructure and the reliability of grid supply available to the plant.
The ₦1.35 trillion number therefore does not establish that every manufacturer’s energy cost rose by 21.6%.
It says MAN’s aggregate estimate of alternative-energy expenditure increased by that amount.
The consumer eventually enters the equation
Factories cannot absorb higher operating costs indefinitely without consequences.
Businesses can respond through some combination of lower margins, higher prices, reduced production, delayed investment, process efficiencies, alternative energy investment or, in more severe cases, reductions in employment and operating capacity.
Which response dominates depends on the company and the market.
That means it would be too simplistic to say ₦1.35 trillion in alternative-power expenditure automatically became higher consumer prices.
But energy costs form part of the production economics behind locally manufactured goods.
When those costs remain structurally high, they can weaken manufacturers’ ability to compete on price with imported alternatives and can constrain the resources available for expansion.
Nigeria’s industrial-policy question therefore runs through electricity
The timing is significant.
MAN’s latest repetition of the ₦1.35 trillion figure came as manufacturers and policymakers discussed how Nigeria could strengthen domestic production and position itself as an industrial hub.
That ambition creates a basic test.
Industrial policy can offer incentives, promote local sourcing and encourage investment.
But factories still need reliable energy.
If manufacturers continue spending enormous sums creating parallel power arrangements merely to operate their plants, part of the investment intended to increase industrial capacity will continue being diverted toward overcoming an infrastructure deficit.
That does not mean every naira of alternative-energy spending is economically wasted.
Captive generation can provide resilience, protect production and prevent even larger losses from downtime.
Renewable and gas-based systems can also become long-term productive infrastructure.
The question is why manufacturers need such a large parallel energy architecture in the first place — and whether it is becoming cheaper and more reliable over time.
The number government should watch is not just grid generation
For industrial policy, more electricity generated nationally is not enough.
The transmission test is whether manufacturers receive electricity at the reliability, quality and effective cost required to operate competitively.
That requires looking beyond megawatts.
The relevant indicators include:
hours and reliability of supply to industrial users;
effective grid and alternative-power cost per unit of usable electricity;
factory downtime attributable to power failures;
alternative-energy expenditure;
and ultimately,
whether energy is consuming more or less of the resources manufacturers need to invest and expand.
MAN’s ₦1.35 trillion estimate puts a price on part of that problem.
It does not prove that Nigeria’s manufacturing sector is collapsing.
It does show how much manufacturers say they are spending to solve an electricity problem inside their own factory gates.
Nigeria wants factories to produce more.
The harder question is how much of their capital must first be spent simply keeping the machines powered.