The National Universities Commission, NUC, says it will partner with OMATEK Ventures, an Information Communication Technology, ICT firm, to provide solar power in universities across Nigeria.
The outgoing Executive Secretary of the commission, Prof. Julius Okojie, made this known at the inauguration of the ‘247 Alternate Power Solution,’ provided by OMATEK for NUC on Friday in Abuja.
“When it comes to energy provision, Nigeria is in crisis because of inadequacy of supply. We are doing this as a pilot project and we plan to replicate this for the students in our various universities,” Prof Okojie said.
According to him, the Alternate Power Solution also “acts like a UPS, when the light goes off, it works. It is the solution to major problem we have in this country and I am happy that OMATEK is keying in appropriately.
“It is a challenge to us; by now we should have been doing some of these things ourselves.To address that, we are already sending some of our ICT students to OMATEK factories for computer assemblage and learning, he stated.
The Group Managing Director of Omatek, Mrs Florence Sekiru, while speaking at the launching said electricity available in Nigeria could never be enough for the large population, adding that with China’s population, they had to reduce power consumption by going solar.
Mrs Sekiru explained further that the firm had provided solar solutions in many places across the country including University of Lagos, saying that setting this up at the commission headquarters is to tell the university community that this is a big way to reduce cost by up to 50%.
“We deploy solar technology solutions to reduce power consumption in Nigeria by as much as 85 per cent,” she said.
