Electricity: Nigerian university campuses will be taken off national grid — Education Minister Alausa

Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Tunji Alausa, has said university campuses across the country will be taken off the national grid through the deployment of solar-powered mini-grids.

Alausa disclosed this in a recent interview, noting that off-grid power solutions in Nigerian educational institutions are improving the standard of learning.

According to him, persistent failures of the national grid have historically undermined academic stability, crippled scientific research and lowered the overall standard of campus life in Nigerian universities.

He explained that providing a dependable learning environment requires taking universities off conventional transmission lines entirely.

The minister said transitioning tertiary institutions to dedicated solar mini-grids would protect lecture halls and student accommodation from recurring power outages.

“We are taking our campuses off the national grid with dedicated solar power. You cannot build a modern university system where students cannot read at night, laboratories lose power in the middle of experiments, and hospitals attached to our universities are forced to run on noisy, expensive diesel generators,” he said.

“The burden of electricity tariffs has been one of the heaviest strains on university finances. Instead of universities sinking hundreds of millions into electricity bills every single month, funds that should be expanding faculties or buying equipment, we are solving this structurally with clean, captive energy that operates around the clock,” he added.

DAILY POST reports that under the Federal Government’s Energizing Education Programme, solar energy solutions are being deployed to at least 25 universities and teaching hospitals across Nigeria.