50-Year Sustainability In Focus As REA Advances $250m Varsities Power Projects

50-Year Sustainability In Focus As REA Advances $250m Varsities Power Projects

The Rural Electrification Agency (REA) has emphasised that the success of its $250 million Nigerian Electrification Project (NEP), currently being implemented under the Energizing Education Programme (EEP) in universities and teaching hospitals, hinges on ensuring sustainability for 20 to 50 years.

Managing Director Engr. Abba Aliyu highlighted this during the EEP Stakeholders’ Engagement Forum (SEF) in Abuja, where the agency signed collaborative agreements with 15 universities.

Aliyu said: “The universities that have benefited from the deployment of these infrastructures are the lucky ones.

“But we cannot see ourselves as being successful without ensuring for those that are ongoing completion of the projects and at the same time ensuring the sustainability of these projects for over 20 to 50 years.

“That is only when we will now look back and say we have succeeded.”

He said consequently a sustainability framework has been established for the projects because of the huge public fund that has been committed to it.

Aliyu added: “The most important thing is ensuring the implementation and sustainability of these projects. A lot of money has been committed, and public sector funding of over $250m has been in both phase two and three of this project to deploy these infrastructure, build a distribution network to upgrade substations, to meter all the connecting areas within the universities and at the same time to build a world-class training centre and establish a foundation of training students within these universities in renewable energy.”

The REA boss said public funds have been committed to engaging different consultants who have reviewed phase one, and who have also reviewed different international projects of similar kind to come up with the sustainability plan.

He urged all the stakeholders to commit to the completion and operation of the power plans and also commit to their sustainability.

Giving a recap of the event, NEP, Head, Olufemi Akinyelure, revealed that phase three of the project will be due for commissioning by the first quarter of 2025.

He explained that phase three is the latest phase with eight universities and one teaching hospital.

He added: “We have started work. Preliminary work has started, and civil work has started. Equipment has been ordered, some of which have started landing already and we are very hopeful that by the first quarter of next year, we will start commissioning those universities as well.”

Akinyelure said the conversation of the event was built around the need to agree on a very implementable plan and operationalization of the plans.

He said it was also about how to distinguish between the operationalization in the short to medium term and the sustainability of the plan in the medium to long term. A lot of the universities, he said, were pleased to learn that the power would not be free.

He stressed: “I think they were happy to receive that news. But on a serious note, we were able to give examples and this is the importance of phase one universities. We were able to give examples of even universities that still enjoy these solar projects to date but are already looking at the end of life of this equipment and wondering how this equipment will be replaced.”

The NEP, however, said it was obvious to everybody that day that there needs to be a commercial case behind the projects moving forward.

But he insisted that “We can enjoy these assets for as long as we need for these projects to last.”

According to him, the NEP is implemented in collaboration and funded by the World Bank and the African Development Bank.

He revealed that occasionally, NEP gets missions from the World Bank, and members of their top management to see on the ground the impact of the projects in Nigeria first-hand themselves.

Continuing, he said “So we were at the community in Dahaji Mini-grid point, a community that hadn’t had power in years. And that mini-grid has been running for over two years now. So they are here to see firsthand the commercial activities that have been brought on board into that mini-grid and other additional activities that have been ignited by that mini-grid.”