The Managing Director of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), Abba Aliyu, has stated that 22 federal universities and three affiliated teaching hospitals are connected to solar electricity under its Energizing Education Program.
Speaking during the commissioning of a 3MW captive solar hybrid power project at Yakubu Gowon University, Abuja, Aliyu said the project has now delivered renewable energy infrastructure to tertiary institutions, leading to the delivery of over 100 megawatts of clean energy to federal universities and teaching hospitals.
“This is just one of the projects that we have completed and the entire program is positively impacting more than 300,000 students and over 50,000 academic and administrative staff with 100MW of clean energy deployed,” he said.
He said the 3MW project will support critical campus infrastructure, including lecture halls, laboratories, ICT systems and administrative facilities, campus lighting and other essential services.
“It gives the university a more predictable energy base and strengthens its ability to operate as a modern teaching and research institution. These numbers are important, but the true value of the Energizing Education Program is not measured by the megawatts. It is measured by improved lighting environment, laboratories that can function more reliably, safer campuses, reduced pressure on university operating budgets, and the confidence it gives the institution to plan around reliable power. Over the years, Energizing Education has also taught us something else. When you build infrastructure at this scale, you have to think beyond the day it is commissioned,” he said.
On his part, the Minister of Power, Joseph O. Tegbe, said the investment demonstrated the practical connection between Nigeria’s energy transition and human capital development.
“There is perhaps no better place to demonstrate the practical value of Nigeria’s energy transition than a university,” Tegbe said.
“A university brings together everything that a modern energy system is expected to support: learning, research, healthcare, technology, administration and, increasingly, the digital infrastructure through which knowledge is created and shared,” he added.
The Minister said the facility would provide a more reliable energy base for teaching and research, while stressing that its long-term performance would be the real measure of the investment.
“The commissioning is not the conclusion of the investment. It is the beginning of its most important phase,” he said.
Tegbe linked this focus on sustainability to the recently established Renewable Asset Management Company (RAMCO), which is intended to strengthen the long-term management and performance of renewable energy assets.
Head of the Nigeria Electrification Project, Olufemi Akinyelure, said the significance of the project should be measured by the wider development opportunities reliable electricity creates.
“Government may not be in the business of making profit, but it must always be in the business of making progress. And perhaps no public investment yields a greater return than investment in education because when we power a university, we do not merely light buildings; we illuminate minds, enable innovation and strengthen the future of our nation,” Akinyelure said.Vice-Chancellor of Yakubu Gowon University, Professor Hakeem Babatunde Fawehinmi, described the project as an investment in the university’s academic mission.
“A university such as ours cannot teach effectively, conduct meaningful research, operate its laboratories, sustain digital services or even provide the conducive environment required for learning and innovation without dependable power supply,” Fawehinmi said.
