Grid-scale stabilisation in Nigeria

Nigeria is edging from PowerPoint to projects on battery energy storage. In late July 2025, the African Development Bank confirmed a US$1.2 million grant to fund a national feasibility study on grid-connected BESS led by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (working with the new system operator). The brief is practical: map where storage adds the most value, test bankable business models, and ready the regulatory plumbing so private capital can follow. In a grid that suffered yet another nationwide outage on 10 September 2025, this signals a pivot from crisis-response to designed resilience.

None of this lives in a vacuum. The Electricity Act 2023 devolved power-market authority to the states and set in motion the unbundling of TCN. NERC’s 2024 Order created the Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO) to run dispatch and the market, and the Presidency confirmed its board this March - steps that matter because grid services like frequency control need a clear buyer, a clear rulebook and clean settlement to scale. The legal and institutional groundwork is, at last, catching up with technology.

Nigeria’s grid collapses are not abstract headlines; they are the predictable outcome of ageing transmission assets, fragile operations and volatile supply. Reuters tallied repeated nationwide disturbances through 2024 and again in 2025, with Abuja restored from Shiroro after the latest event - evidence that fast, local balancing capacity would reduce the probability and depth of such cascades. BESS can deliver sub-second frequency response, absorb shocks when large units trip, and time-shift energy to shave peaks on stressed corridors. In short: it buys the operator options that gas turbines and diesel alone cannot.

Africa is already proving the template. South Africa’s Red Sands - the continent’s largest standalone BESS at commercial close - moved forward this year alongside grid-upgrade commitments, underlining a bankability point: when grid services are codified and the interconnection scope is clear, storage projects reach close. Nigeria’s AfDB-backed study is intended to create those conditions at home, turning “feasibility” into a first pipeline.

Devolution matters for storage because many fixes are local. The Electricity Act lets states create their own markets and licences; seven states have already taken charge, with Lagos and others in transition. That creates space for state-led procurements - for example, concessioning a frequency-response plant at a known bottleneck, or a peak-shaving asset tied to an urban substation—so long as NISO’s dispatch and settlement rules recognise and pay for the service. It is exactly the sort of federal-state choreography Nigeria’s reforms were designed to enable.

Unbundling the buyer was also essential. NISO’s creation separates infrastructure ownership from system and market operation, clarifying who can contract ancillary services, run auctions and settle performance. That clarity lowers risk for lenders as much as it does for developers; the market learns what is being bought (frequency containment, ramping, black-start), how it is measured and when it is paid.

Expect the first grid-scale batteries to sit where the grid’s pain is loudest: at major 132/330 kV nodes with frequent under-frequency load shedding, and near transmission corridors that see congestion during peak evening ramps. The AfDB study’s terms - grid integration analysis, business-model testing, and capacity building—suggest pilot sites that are technically diverse but commercially replicable, so they can be financed in batches rather than as one-offs. Given Nigeria’s recent move to build hundreds of renewable mini- and MetroGrids, a parallel track for distribution-connected storage is also likely, providing peak-shaving and islanding where feeders are weak.

Financing will favour code-ready designs with published safety artefacts (UL 9540A test data, NFPA 855-aligned layouts, IEC 62619-compliant cells) and interconnection packages that include protection studies and SCADA integration. South Africa’s example again helps: grid-upgrade scopes agreed up front, performance-based payments, and lender-reliable warranties. Nigeria’s feasibility work is meant to hard-wire the same bankability ingredients.

Grid operators care about energy density, degradation and lifetime safety. CATL’s TENER platform, launched in 2024, delivers 6.25 MWh in a 20-ft container and claims zero capacity degradation for five years, materially improving yield and project economics versus legacy containers. Higher density means smaller plots and easier substation integration; flatter degradation means more dependable service delivery under pay-for-performance contracts. Independent trade coverage and CATL’s own technical notes track these gains and the footprint reduction per megawatt-hour.

For hot-and-dusty Nigerian sites, TENER-class containers pair with HVAC and safety systems designed for high ambient temperatures and rapid thermal propagation testing. That matters when insurers ask about risk and when NISO or a state regulator evaluates UL 9540A results, ventilation/fire-suppression design and emergency procedures during permitting. In practice, premium hardware narrows the argument from “can it survive here?” to “what services will it provide and how will we pay for them?”

Our role is to turn this policy moment into steel in the ground. On the upstream side, we help states and NISO convert the AfDB roadmap into solicitation-ready documents: technology-agnostic service specifications, metering and test protocols, and interconnection scopes that developers and lenders recognise. We align ancillary-service definitions with what modern BESS can do—frequency containment, synthetic inertia, ramping and black-start—so awards buy real stability, not just boxes.

On the project side, ASE brings CATL relationships and the “whole stack”: TENER containers, PCS and MV step-up, protection studies, SCADA/EMS integration, cyber baselines, and construction methods tailored to brownfield substations. We package code-ready safety files (UL 9540A summaries, NFPA 855 layouts, IEC 62619 cell compliance) and lender-friendly warranties, then run commissioning with grid-code tests witnessed by NISO. The result is a plant that can bid—and get paid—for services from day one, not a science project that waits on paperwork.

The path from “feasibility” to “first megawatts” is short if Nigeria standardises on three things. First, a services catalogue with clear telemetry and settlement. Second, repeatable site designs that marry CATL containers to Nigerian substation reality - soil, ambient heat, fire services, and access. Third, transparent auctions that blend state leadership with NISO dispatch, respecting the Electricity Act’s devolution while keeping the grid coherent. With those in place, portfolio financing (rather than single-asset deals) becomes viable and timelines shrink.

The good news is that much of this is already moving. The AfDB grant is scoped; NISO is established; states are taking control; and the grid’s need is undeniable after September’s collapse. Our job—as integrator, engineer and translator between policy and kit - is to line up CATL-class storage where it stabilises the most people, the fastest, and to make the numbers work for operators, lenders and the public. First megawatts are within reach.