B y Julius Peter, Abuja
The Rural Electrification Agency (REA) has launched the Renewable Asset Management Company (RAMCO), a new initiative designed to ensure the long-term sustainability, maintenance and efficient management of publicly funded renewable energy infrastructure deployed in universities and teaching hospitals across Nigeria.
The initiative, officially unveiled on Wednesday in Abuja, is aimed at addressing one of the major challenges confronting the country’s renewable energy sector: the deterioration of projects after commissioning due to inadequate maintenance, weak revenue collection systems and the absence of a dedicated institutional structure for managing the assets throughout their economic lifespan.
Speaking at the launch, the Managing Director of REA, Abba Aliyu, said the establishment of RAMCO represented the agency’s institutional response to years of challenges associated with maintaining renewable energy projects after they had been delivered to beneficiary institutions.
According to him, REA had, since 2017, deployed about 82 megawatts of solar hybrid generation capacity across 22 federal universities and three teaching hospitals under the Energising Education Programme (EEP).
However, Aliyu expressed concern over the condition of some of the projects, noting that an assessment of seven projects delivered under the programme’s first phase revealed that only three remained in good or usable condition.
He said the situation was particularly troubling because the deterioration of the projects was not necessarily attributable to engineering defects, but rather to the absence of sustainable maintenance structures and dependable mechanisms for generating revenue to operate and renew the systems.
“At one institution, the required special purpose vehicle had been established, but no single revenue is collected from the sale of the electricity being generated by that infrastructure,” Aliyu said.
He explained that without a sustainable financial and operational framework, expensive renewable energy assets could gradually become unusable despite having been properly designed and installed.
The REA boss said RAMCO had been established to provide professional management of publicly financed renewable energy assets, including the engagement of competent operators, metering of electricity consumption, billing and collection of payments, as well as regular maintenance of the infrastructure.
“RAMCO’s mandate is straightforward: manage publicly financed renewable energy assets professionally; contract competent operators; meter, bill and collect; maintain sustainability of all this equipment,” he stated.
The initiative is being implemented in collaboration with the Ministry of Power, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MoFI), Budget Office of the Federation and Infrastructure Corporation of Nigeria (InfraCo).
Aliyu said the company would also establish a dedicated funding mechanism to ensure that critical components of renewable energy systems, particularly batteries and inverters, could be replaced when they reached the end of their useful lives.
He stressed that the government should not have to return to the Ministry of Finance for fresh funding every time a major component of a renewable energy project required replacement.
“If a battery or inverter requires replacement, we shouldn’t return to the Ministry of Finance. We should be able to have an economic fund to replace that battery or inverter. The money should already be there, and the deployment has to start today,” he said.
The REA managing director clarified that RAMCO was not established primarily as a profit-making venture, particularly because the capital expenditure for the infrastructure had already been borne by government.
Rather, he said, the objective was to establish a tariff and revenue system capable of covering the costs of operating, maintaining and eventually renewing the renewable energy assets.
He maintained that beneficiary institutions must play a role in preserving the infrastructure by paying for the electricity they consume.
“The government has funded this asset, REA has built them, but the beneficiary institution must contribute to sustaining them by paying for the electricity they consume,” Aliyu said.
He described the proposed payment as a sustainability tariff, explaining that it should not be viewed as an entirely new financial burden on universities and other beneficiary institutions.
According to him, the tariff would essentially redirect a portion of money that institutions would ordinarily spend on diesel or conventional electricity towards maintaining the renewable energy systems that provide them with power.
To demonstrate the economic benefits of properly managed renewable energy infrastructure, Aliyu cited the solar power project at Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ebonyi State, which was commissioned in 2019.
He said the project currently serves more than 9,500 staff and students and had generated approximately N1.8 billion in combined savings during its first five years through avoided diesel purchases and conventional electricity bills.
The project, he added, had also helped prevent an estimated 2,367 tonnes of carbon emissions.
Aliyu said the example demonstrated that renewable energy investments could deliver significant economic and environmental benefits when properly maintained and sustainably managed.
He stressed that the sustainability tariff was therefore intended to preserve those benefits rather than impose an unnecessary financial burden on beneficiary institutions.
The REA chief said the RAMCO model would help reduce the country’s dependence on repeated government appropriations for the maintenance and renewal of renewable energy infrastructure.
He added that the initiative could eventually create a platform for attracting private-sector capital into the renewable energy sector.
According to him, professionally managed renewable energy assets with predictable revenue streams could be aggregated and financed, creating an opportunity to use existing infrastructure as a foundation for expanding electrification across the country.
He said such a model would help Nigeria transition from a system where government-funded infrastructure is constructed and subsequently left to deteriorate, to one in which renewable energy assets are treated as long-term economic infrastructure requiring continuous management and investment.
Aliyu also disclosed that REA was working with MoFI and InfraCo to promote local manufacturing of renewable energy equipment, including solar modules, batteries, inverters, street-lighting equipment and solar asset recycling facilities.
He said about $425 million had been invested in the manufacturing cycle as of last year, stressing that strengthening local production would support the sustainability of Nigeria’s renewable energy ecosystem while reducing dependence on imported equipment.
The initiative, he explained, would complement RAMCO’s asset management mandate by helping to create a domestic supply chain capable of supporting the maintenance and replacement of renewable energy equipment.
Aliyu further disclosed that REA would undertake the valuation and technical assessment of existing renewable energy assets before transferring them into the RAMCO partnership.
He said the agency would also establish appropriate operation and maintenance arrangements for projects implemented under the Energising Education Programme.
Beneficiary institutions, the National Universities Commission (NUC), the Ministries of Education and Health, and the Budget Office of the Federation would also be engaged to establish accountable tariff and payment mechanisms.
He said the objective was to ensure that every stakeholder understood its responsibility in preserving the infrastructure and that the revenue generated from the assets was properly accounted for.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Ministry of Finance Incorporated, who also spoke at the launch, expressed support for the RAMCO initiative, recalling that several Federal Government projects had suffered deterioration or abandonment after completion because of inadequate maintenance arrangements.
He said MoFI had developed a national asset register of Federal Government projects, with assets checked, verified and evaluated as part of efforts to improve the management of public infrastructure.
The MoFI chairman urged the Federal Government and implementing agencies to ensure that universities were adequately carried along in the RAMCO framework, particularly on the issue of tariff payment.
He stressed that the success of the initiative would depend largely on effective cooperation among the government, beneficiary institutions, operators and other stakeholders.
The launch of RAMCO marks a significant shift in the Federal Government’s approach to renewable energy infrastructure, placing greater emphasis on the management of assets after commissioning.
With billions of naira invested in renewable energy projects across educational and healthcare institutions, the sustainability of those investments has become increasingly important as Nigeria seeks to expand clean and reliable electricity access.
The REA’s experience under the Energising Education Programme has highlighted the need for a system that goes beyond project construction to include long-term maintenance, revenue collection, component replacement and professional asset management.
Through RAMCO, the agency hopes to establish such a system, ensuring that publicly funded renewable energy projects remain operational, economically viable and capable of delivering benefits to Nigerians throughout their expected lifespans.
