Assessment of Telecommunications Power Infrastructure and Backup Reliability at Data Centres in Kano, North West Nigeria

This study assesses the electrical power infrastructure and backup power reliability at telecommunications data centres in Kano, North West Nigeria, evaluating their capability to maintain continuous operations during the frequent grid power outages characterising the city's electricity supply. Data centres host the server, networking, and storage infrastructure on which telecommunications services, banking platforms, and e-government systems depend, making electrical reliability a non-negotiable infrastructure requirement. A structured assessment was conducted at five Kano data centres ranging from small edge facilities to a Tier II-equivalent carrier-neutral facility, using the Uptime Institute Tier standard methodology as the assessment framework. The assessment covered utility power feed configuration, UPS system capacity and battery autonomy, standby generator rating, fuel storage capacity, redundancy architecture, cooling power reliability, and maintenance practices. Results indicate that only one of the five assessed data centres demonstrates Tier II or above power infrastructure architecture with concurrent maintainability. The remaining four facilities lack sufficient generator transfer switch redundancy, have UPS battery autonomy below the standard 15-minute minimum, and have fuel storage sufficient for fewer than 12 hours of full-load operation. Regular UPS battery testing is absent at two facilities. The predominant grid outage profile in Kano, characterised by outages averaging 8 to 14 hours, is incompatible with the backup autonomy available at most assessed facilities. Recommendations include mandatory adoption of the Tier II standard for data centres above a defined server count threshold. Keywords: data centre, backup power, UPS, Kano, telecommunications reliability.