Africa Energy Infrastructure Projects: Transmission, Gas and Metering

The standard account of African electricity is that there is not enough generation. In several of the largest markets that has not been true for some years. Nigeria has installed generation capacity well above what is actually delivered to customers, and the gap is not a shortage of power stations. It sits in transmission, distribution, gas supply and metering — which is precisely where the project opportunity now is.

Follow the kilowatt-hour from turbine to customer

Four things have to work in sequence, and a failure at any one makes the others irrelevant.

1. Fuel. A gas turbine with no gas is an ornament. Gas supply depends on pipeline capacity, on the gas price being commercial, and on the generator being paid so it can pay for gas.
2. Transmission. High-voltage lines and substations carry bulk power from plants to load centres. Where the grid cannot wheel the power, generation is constrained off regardless of demand.
3. Distribution. Medium and low-voltage networks, transformers and feeders deliver to customers. Overloaded, aged and poorly configured distribution assets are the proximate cause of most outages customers actually experience.
4. Metering and collection. If energy delivered is not measured and billed, the money does not return up the chain, and every party upstream is under-funded. This is the root of the sector’s financial condition in several markets.

Read that sequence and the investment question reframes itself. Adding generation to a system constrained downstream adds stranded capacity. Fixing the downstream constraint releases capacity that already exists — a far better return on capital, and a much shorter project.

Where the projects actually are

The financing problem, stated plainly

A power project is bankable when a lender believes the offtaker will pay for twenty years. In much of the continent the offtaker is a state utility or a bulk trader whose own revenue depends on distribution companies collecting from customers — and collection is incomplete. Lenders therefore require credit support: a sovereign guarantee, a partial risk guarantee from a development institution, a letter of credit facility, or a payment security mechanism funded in advance.

This is why so many announced generation projects never reach financial close. It is also why two segments move much faster than the rest:

• Captive and embedded generation, where the customer is a solvent industrial or commercial business that pays monthly and can be disconnected. No sovereign risk, no guarantee, no three-year negotiation.
• Equipment supply to distribution companies under commercial terms, where the contract is for goods rather than for twenty years of energy.

For most suppliers and most investors, those two are where the realistic business is, and the utility-scale independent power pipeline is where the press releases are.

Gas is the swing factor in West Africa

Nigeria in particular holds very large gas reserves alongside persistent power shortages, and the constraint between them is infrastructure and commercial terms rather than geology. Three things follow for project participants:

• Pipeline and processing capacity is the physical bottleneck, and projects that expand it unlock value far beyond their own returns.
• Compressed and liquefied natural gas for industry and transport is a growing commercial market that bypasses the grid entirely — industrial users converting from diesel to gas are buying equipment now, with ordinary commercial payment terms.
• Gas pricing and payment remain the sector’s unresolved commercial question. A generation project whose gas supply agreement is not firmly priced and firmly supplied is carrying an unhedged position.

How these projects fail

• Equipment specified for a different grid. Voltage, frequency, fault levels, earthing practice and ambient temperature all differ. Equipment that performs in a temperate 50 Hz network can derate significantly in 40°C ambient with high harmonic distortion.
• No spares and no local service. A transformer that fails with a twenty-week replacement lead time takes a feeder out for twenty weeks. Buyers increasingly score this, correctly.
• Vandalism and theft. Conductor, transformer oil and copper are stolen at scale. Designs that ignore this are repaired continuously.
• Payment chain failure. A supplier contracted to a distribution company contracted to a bulk trader is exposed to every weak link upstream. Structure payment accordingly — advance, letter of credit or milestone — rather than discovering the chain later.
• Currency. Equipment in dollars, tariff in local currency, and no indexation. This single mismatch has destroyed more returns in the sector than technical failure.

Honest assessment

Energy infrastructure in Africa is a genuinely large and genuinely slow market, and the part of it that is open to a new entrant is narrower than the headline numbers suggest. Transmission is development-bank procurement and accessible but highly competed. Distribution equipment supply is a relationship business requiring local presence and service capability. Captive generation for industrial customers is the segment with the shortest path from quotation to payment, and it is the one most often overlooked by suppliers who are busy pursuing the utility.

What Wigmore Trading does

We supply, import and deliver power equipment in Nigeria and West Africa, and we are the local arm for foreign manufacturers who need to be present in a procurement process.

• Equipment procurement and supply — transformers, switchgear, cable, protection, meters, generators, inverters and storage, specified for local grid conditions rather than catalogue conditions
• Solar and captive power for industrial and commercial users, from load study through supply to installation and commissioning
• Importation and clearing with correct classification, including any duty concession available on power equipment, and delivery to substation or site
• Project cargo logistics for transformers and heavy plant, including vessel booking and inland transport
• Local bidding entity and after-sales presence for foreign suppliers bidding to utilities, including spares stockholding

For delivered cost on an equipment package, start with the landed cost calculator and the rest of the trade tools.

Next step: tell us the equipment and the buyer. We will tell you the duty treatment, the delivered price, and what the after-sales requirement will be before anyone asks you for it. Contact the desk.

Related reading

• Africa Renewable Energy Projects: C&I, Mini-Grid or Utility Scale — which of the three solar models actually pays
• Africa Infrastructure Projects: Who Actually Pays — who funds infrastructure, and where suppliers enter the chain
• Africa Industrial Equipment Suppliers: Buying Machines That Keep Running — buying machines that still run in year three

Sector structure, tariffs, capacity figures and duty treatment change continuously and differ by country. This article is indicative as at 2026 and is not investment or engineering advice. Verify current conditions before committing capital.