According to media reports,in its bid to ensure that the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN) has an uninterrupted supply of electricity, the institution has signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with an American company, Arrow Capital Solar Company, to produce 500 mega watts of solar energy.
The project, that would gulp N600 billion, would commence immediately and is expected to be completed in October this year. The project is the first of its kind in the Nigerian universities as well as the subregion.
Addressing select journalists in Ilorin, the Kwara state capital over the weekend while signing the MoU, the Chief Executive Officer of Arrow Capital Solar Company, Brian Travis, said the project, which is strictly private sector driven, was “an absolute demonstration of private sector initiative by the American company in Nigeria.”
Aside from the institution’s stable academic calendar, Travis said University of Ilorin, among several other universities in Nigeria, was selected for the project because of its strategic location, pointing out that the institution is an ideal location for solar power, especially that the backbone of the electricity distribution in the country runs through the line of the institution. Besides, he said his company was buoyed by President Muhammadu Buhari’s announcement during his official visit to America that Nigeria was highly committed to solar power.