Nigeria’s electricity regulator has widened the route by which large industrial and commercial users can buy power directly from generators, bypassing the distribution companies. In approvals confirmed in May 2026, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission expanded capacity under its Eligible Customer framework, letting qualified consumers with the technical and financial standing contract directly with generation companies on willing-buyer, willing-seller terms.
Underpinned by the Electricity Act 2023, the arrangement lets heavy users sidestep the grid’s reliability and billing problems and strike bilateral supply deals. The commission frames it as a way to ease pressure on the national grid and lift reliability for businesses, while drawing more private capital into generation.
It is one piece of a wider decentralisation. Under the same Act, oversight of intrastate electricity has now passed to 15 states, moving Nigeria away from a single national market toward local ones. In March the commission also ordered privately owned, grid-connected transmission substations that feed large consumers to register and seek approval, formalising the infrastructure that direct supply depends on.
The backdrop is a steady exit from the grid. Frustrated by unreliable supply, large users are increasingly generating their own power, with NERC granting captive permits above one megawatt to a further twenty firms in the third quarter of 2025 alone. Direct contracting gives that same class of customer a regulated alternative to either the grid or a generator of its own.
Why this matters
The regulator paves the road Nova is built for
Selling reliable power directly to commercial and industrial customers is not an adjacent opportunity for Nova; it is the business. Sapio’s captive gas plants and Nova Blueline Power’s generation exist to put firm electricity next to demand. When the regulator widens the Eligible Customer framework and formalises private transmission into large loads, it is legitimising and enlarging exactly that market.
The practical effect is a bigger, clearer addressable base. More large consumers can now lawfully contract for power outside the DisCo, on bilateral terms that suit a developer able to guarantee availability and price. As the grid’s dysfunction pushes industry to look elsewhere, the rules are increasingly written around the embedded and distributed model, the one Nova already operates, turning a regulatory shift into a commercial tailwind.