How technology firms cash in on Nigeria’s lack of constant electricity
Technology companies focused on creating solutions to solve critical economic issues are riding on the back of Nigeria’s unfortunate reality of poor power supply to bring into the market, technology solutions that can somewhat make lives more comfortable.
Data on Genset Import/Export Trade from United Nations Statistics Division show that as at 2016, Nigeria was the second largest market for electricity generator driven market in Africa, as figures for the worth of generators in the country are expected to hit $450 million by 2020.
In a country with a population of over 180 million people, 90 million of which lack electricity supply, it is unsurprising that technology solutions like inverters, power-banks, reachable fans and lamps, and low voltage capacity electrical equipments have been pushed into the market and are selling out very fast.
Very recently, Simba Industries, one of the leading companies in the power backup industry in Nigeria, introduced KStar UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) systems to the market. KStar is recognised for its specialised power backup solutions, capable of handling mission-critical electrical equipment including hospital diagnostic and surgical apparatus, data centers and Bank ATMs.
A UPS is a device that provides battery backup when the electrical power fails or drops to an unacceptable power voltage level.
Unlike traditional online UPS systems, KStar, during its launch in Lagos, assured that its products can handle a wide range of applications which have peculiar power needs, such as factory machinery, where power requirements at startup are huge, and where power failure can often lead to significant cost escalation, as machines need to cool down and be restarted.
Ranked 6th among all global UPS brands, the Chinese original equipment manufacturer (OEM) with revenue of $477 million in 2017 and staff strength of over 3,000 people saw the need to capitalise on Nigeria’s poor power supply situation and made use of its extensive research and development (R&D) unit with about 362 employees working on hardware, software, structure, testing and others, to develop a solution that will solve pending electricity issues.
Speaking to members of the press in Lagos on October19, 2018, the representative of Simba Industries, Prasanna Sridhar, explained that KStar is the sixth largest manufacturer of UPS in the world, offering high quality products and full service support to more than 90 countries.
Sridhar noted that the different ranges of KStar UPS can cater to every power demand and needs across different sectors, including manufacturing, oil and gas, medical establishments, businesses and other key industries.
“Hundreds of thousands of businesses around the world depend on reliable power back-up solutions for their critical systems. Downtime is simply not an option for them, as it results in potentially millions of dollars of losses per second. TheKStar UPS draws on the latest research and development to offer unparalleled power backup solutions for a diverse range of industries” he said.
Electricity downtime is a major hindrance to business growth and development in Nigeria and technology solutions to help cushion the effects of huge financial loss due to redundancy is always a welcome idea, not only to individuals and SMEs but also for large business organisations and enterprises.
BDSunday finds that Nigerian banks have adopted the KSTAR SOHO inverter used to power their automated teller machines (ATMs) across the country, the KStar 120kva High Frequency UPS have also been used in factories across the country in the last six years while the
60KVA High Frequency UPS have been installed at premier Lotto Office, Surulere, Lagos and is connected to 16 blocks of 200AH batteries to support sensitive load at remote sites.
A 20KVA three phase UID Transformer based low frequency UPS, powering an ISUZU elevator in a residential building in Banana Island, Ikoyi, Lagos.
With its headquarters in Shenzhen, China, KStar also has a worldwide service network with 14 overseas service centers, two offices in Africa (Nigeria and South Africa), 40 overseas service engineers and a 24/7 service and response team.
Suresh Kumar, head of Simba Service, assures that the company will provide power audit consultation, installation, 24 hour customer support, and annual maintenance contracts to customers.
“At Simba, we believe that total customer satisfaction is only achieved, when a good quality product is supported by attentive and responsive customer care and after sales service. Simba Service is at the heart of our value proposition to customers,” Kumar said.
KStar offers an extensive range of UPS solutions, including Online Transformer/Transformer-less UPS, Line Interactive UPS and Modular UPS all of which are aimed at delivering optimised energy sourcing, cost savings as well as minimising downtime – thereby meeting the critical needs of its customers in various sectors of the Nigerian economy.