How PowerLabs is helping Nigerian businesses cut energy bills
Nigerian businesses juggle unreliable grid power, diesel generators, and solar systems at high cost. PowerLabs’ software platform, Pai, helps optimise energy use, cutting expenses and improving uptime.
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The average Nigerian business does not rely on a single source of electricity. Instead, it operates a patchwork of sources: grid power, diesel generators, and increasingly, solar systems. That fragmentation often comes with a steep price.<br />
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According to the World Bank, Nigeria suffers from one of the most unreliable electricity supplies in the world, with firms experiencing frequent outages that can last days or even months. In response, businesses have built alternative power systems. Estimates suggest that more than 70% of Nigerian businesses own or share diesel generators, effectively substituting for a grid that fails to meet demand.<br />
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The cost of that workaround is enormous. In 2023 alone, Nigerian businesses and households spent over ₦14 trillion (roughly $10 billion) on generators and fuel, according to public comments from the country’s former power minister. <br />
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“Power costs can go as high as 60% of operating expenses for some of our customers,” says David Adebiyi, Chief Technology Officer of PowerLabs, a startup trying to bring order to this chaos. <br />
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A software layer for a fragmented grid<br />
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Founded in 2023 by David Adebiyi, Tobechukwu Arize, Eghonghon-aye Eigbe, and Joses Williams, PowerLabs is building what it describes as an intelligent orchestration layer for business energy use.<br />
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Its core product, Pai, sits on top of a company’s existing power infrastructure — whether that includes diesel generators, solar panels, inverters, or grid connections — and helps determine how and when each source should be used.<br />
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“People don’t just want to monitor usage,” Adebiyi says. “They want guaranteed uptime, and they want lower costs.”<br />
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Energy monitoring tools are not new. Many Nigerian businesses already track consumption across generators and grid supply. But Pai goes a step further by acting on the data it tracks.<br />
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At the heart of the system is a hardware device, designed and prototyped in Lagos, that connects to a company’s various power sources and...
