The Federal Government has disclosed that more than 30 per cent of solar systems installed in Primary Health Care Centres (PHCs) across Nigeria become non-functional within three years of commissioning.

The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Iziaq Salako, who made this disclosure on Wednesday in Abuja, attributed the recurring failures largely to inadequate maintenance, unavailable spare parts, lack of dedicated budgetary provisions and unclear responsibility for the assets after project completion.

Salako spoke at the official launch of the Renewable Asset Management Company (RAMCO) of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), with the theme, “Powering Sustainable Growth: Launching Nigeria’s Renewable Asset Management Company.”

He said the sustainability of renewable-energy infrastructure was particularly important to the health sector because electricity in healthcare facilities was not merely an infrastructure requirement but a critical clinical input.

Speaking as both a physician and a Minister, Salako explained that electricity powers essential services such as vaccine cold chains, oxygen concentrators, operating theatres and neonatal incubators.

He stressed that power failure in health facilities could translate to loss of time, reduced quality of care and, in some cases, loss of life.

The Minister said the Federal Government had made significant investments in renewable energy to improve electricity supply to health facilities, but warned that installing the infrastructure without ensuring its long-term functionality would undermine the investments.

He noted that under the Energising Education Programme, federal tertiary health institutions, including teaching hospitals in Maiduguri and Calabar, had benefited from renewable-energy interventions.

He added that under the Nigeria Electrification Project, 100 health facilities had received 50-kilowatt containerised solar hybrid systems, while a second phase was targeting 400 Primary Health Care Centres.

Despite the interventions, Salako said energy poverty remained a major challenge within Nigeria’s health system.

According to him, between 60 and 70 per cent of Nigeria’s primary and tertiary health facilities experience frequent power outages or have no electricity at all, while about 40 per cent of functional Primary Health Care Centres have no electricity access.

He further noted that most of the remaining facilities receive only about six to 10 hours of electricity daily.

Teaching hospitals, he said, require between three and eight megawatts for optimal operation but receive roughly five hours of grid supply daily, forcing some to commit as much as 40 to 50 per cent of their operating expenditure to energy, much of it on diesel.

Salako said the challenge underscored the need to move from simply procuring renewable-energy infrastructure to ensuring that such assets were properly managed and maintained throughout their operational lifespan.

He recalled that President Bola Tinubu approved the Nigeria Power-for-Health Initiative following the first National Stakeholders’ Dialogue on Power in the Health Sector held in September 2025.

He said the dialogue resulted in a Compact for the Sustainable Electrification of Public and Private Health Facilities, signed by the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Federal Ministry of Power, sub-national governments, the Committee of CMDs/MDs, the private sector, development partners and civil society.

The Compact established a target of ensuring that at least 30 per cent of health facilities in Nigeria have steady power supply by the end of 2027.

Salako, however, said achieving the target would require more than government funding, calling for private capital, development finance, climate finance and innovative financing mechanisms.

He said the objective was not simply to install solar panels or batteries, but to build resilient health infrastructure capable of delivering reliable power over the long term.

The Minister identified RAMCO as critical to addressing the sustainability challenge, saying its asset-management model could transform renewable-energy installations from short-term projects into professionally managed national infrastructure assets.

He explained that RAMCO’s model of “build, operate, optimise, aggregate, refinance and reinvest” could help ensure that renewable-energy installations remained functional long after commissioning.

Salako proposed four areas of practical synergy between RAMCO and the Nigeria Power-for-Health Initiative.

He called for health facilities to be recognised as a distinct asset class within RAMCO’s portfolio, beginning with teaching hospitals and health facilities already solarised under existing Federal Government programmes.

He also advocated the integration of RAMCO’s professional asset-management model with Facility Energy Management Teams being institutionalised in hospitals, noting that effective sustainability requires both on-site technical ownership and professional management.

While calling for RAMCO’s asset register to be integrated with health-facility energy audits, stressing that improved data would enable both sectors to plan and invest from a common evidence base, he proposed that a defined share of the capital recycled by RAMCO should be directed towards Primary Health Care Centres, particularly facilities that may be less commercially attractive but are critical to improving maternal and newborn health outcomes.

He said: “For our part, the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare commits to offering RAMCO a seat within the Inter-Agency Technical Committee of the Power-for-Health Initiative.”

The minister further pledged that the Ministry would advance electricity as a dedicated budget line across all tiers of healthcare, complete and regularly update facility energy audits, enforce certification and installation standards, including NEMSA certification, and harmonise partner and private-sector interventions under government leadership.

He stressed that a credible asset-management framework would make healthcare electrification more attractive to long-term investors by ensuring that renewable assets are professionally managed, performance data are transparent, maintenance is predictable and payment structures are credible.

He reiterated that Nigeria’s target of achieving steady power supply in at least one-third of its health facilities by the end of 2027 would not be achieved through procurement alone.

“We will reach it by building assets that last, and by managing them as the national infrastructure they are.”

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