In Nigeria, Solar Panels Are the New Wedding Gift

High fuel prices and cheap Chinese technology are accelerating Nigeria’s shift to solar, transforming how people shop, spend and live.

Six days a week, merchants and would-be buyers pack the dense grid of plazas and narrow, shop-lined streets that make up Lagos’s Alaba International Market. Moving through West Africa’s largest electronics bazaar can feel like an obstacle course: Cars, motorbikes and hand-pulled carts ferry goods from warehouses to shops and from shops onto trailers.

Generators, televisions and refrigerators have long filled the shop fronts. Now, solar panels, inverters and lithium batteries increasingly compete for space. Brands like Deye and Felicity Solar are everywhere, alongside counterfeits in copycat packaging with names like Fidelity or Facility.

Source: www.bloomberg.com