Fifteen universities across Nigeria have been fully connected to solar farms under the Federal Government’s renewable energy intervention programmes, the Rural Electrification Agency, REA, has announced.
The Agency also revealed that it is currently developing 48 interconnected mini-grid projects across the country in partnership with electricity distribution companies.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the REA, Abba Aliyu, disclosed this during an interview on Monday, July 27, 2026.
“We also have completed our interventions in the universities where we completed 15 universities as of today. All these universities now are fully connected with the solar farms,” Aliyu said.
He said the university intervention was part of the Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up, DARES, project, which is designed to expand electricity access across Nigeria through renewable energy solutions.
Aliyu described DARES as the largest publicly funded renewable energy access project in the world, saying it is expected to provide electricity to about 17.5 million Nigerians.
According to him, the project has attracted significant interest and participation from private investors, helping to accelerate its expansion.
“For the first time in the country, we are deploying more than 1,000 mini-grids nationwide,” he said, explaining that the projects include isolated mini-grids as well as interconnected mini-grids.
The REA chief said the Agency was currently working on 48 interconnected mini-grid projects across the country in collaboration with electricity distribution companies.
“We have been moving around the country conducting groundbreaking ceremonies and setting deployment targets of between six and eight months for all the interconnected mini-grids,” he added.
Aliyu also highlighted efforts by the Agency to attract private-sector financing into Nigeria’s renewable energy sector.
He said the REA had secured the support of several Nigerian banks and signed multiple memoranda of understanding covering equipment financing, debt financing and bridge financing for private-sector operators.
On planning and implementation, Aliyu said the Agency had completed a nationwide mapping exercise, which he described as the first of its kind in Nigeria, to identify locations requiring electricity interventions.
According to him, the exercise enabled the Agency to identify more than 750,000 communities across the country, generating critical data to guide the expansion of electricity access through renewable energy projects.