Okra Solar gets $7m from BII to bring power to up to 750,000 people in rural Nigeria
The financing lets the mesh-grid company buy equipment for about 150,000 new connections, more than ten times its current network.
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Lagos — Okra Solar, an off-grid energy company working in Nigeria, has secured a $7 million debt facility from British International Investment (BII), the UK's development finance institution, to speed up clean electricity access in rural communities.
Sharing power between neighbours
Founded in 2016, Okra builds mesh-grids: solar panels, batteries and smart controls that let neighbouring homes and businesses share electricity at low cost. The company says the model delivers more power than typical solar home systems while needing less infrastructure than conventional mini-grids.
Okra has more than 13,000 households connected and over 2.3MW of installed capacity. The BII money will let it buy equipment for roughly 150,000 new connections, more than ten times its current size, with the potential to bring electricity to 750,000 people in rural Nigeria for the first time.
Stock ready when a deal is signed
The facility addresses a common barrier for distributed renewable energy: working capital. By buying components upfront and in larger volumes, Okra expects to cut costs and halve delivery times to Nigeria from four months to about two.
"Every month a project is delayed is another month a community goes without power," said Afnan Hannan, Okra's chief executive. "With BII's facility we are procuring long lead time components, batteries, and solar PV equipment upfront and in volume, reducing costs and having stock ready when a developer signs."
Mesh-grids qualify under Nigeria's Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) programme, run by the Rural Electrification Agency with World Bank support. Faster delivery should help developers using Okra's systems receive results-based grant payments sooner.
Source: Disrupt Africa, 10 November 2026.
