Soft drinks business wants to be biggest industrial solar user in Nigeria

Nigerian soft drinks business Seven-Up Bottling Company is pitching to be the country’s largest industrial user of solar power by committing to install a further 10.5 MW of generation capacity within six months.

Lagos-headquartered Seven-Up already has 450 kW and 990 kW solar arrays at its bottling plants in Kaduna and Kano, respectively, which were fitted by Lagos-based commercial and industrial PV installer Daystar Power this year.

The drinks manufacturer yesterday announced it will extend the arrangement with another 10.5 MW of capacity at five factory sites in Abuja, Lagos, Ibadan and Ilorin, to ensure there are solar panels at each of its production bases.

With the latest five systems able to provide up to half the daily electricity needs of the factories, Seven-Up wants solar to eventually become the primary source of daytime energy across its Nigerian production centers.

A press release about the new generation capacity, issued by Daystar yesterday, stated Seven-Up saved up to 40% on its energy bills after the initial 1.44 MW of solar panels was installed.

With the latest contract set to take Seven-Up to almost 12 MW of solar capacity, the company would be Nigeria’s biggest industrial user of solar for its daytime energy needs, added the installer.