Aso Villa to Now Run Fully on Solar Power, Ditches National Grid
- The state house permanent secretary disclosed that the Aso Rock Presidential Villa’s solar power project was completed in late 2025
- Officials said the state house medical centre had operated fully on solar energy since May 2025
- Senate scrutiny of the 2026 State House budget revealed concerns over electricity overbilling by AEDC and a push to review vehicle procurement allocations
Plans to remove the Aso Rock Presidential Villa from Nigeria’s national electricity grid by March 2026 have entered their final phase following months of testing on a completed solar power system.
The development was disclosed by the State House Permanent Secretary, Temitope Fashedemi, during the defence of the 2026 budget of the State House before the Senate Committee on Special Duties.
Source: UGC
The briefing took place at the National Assembly complex in Abuja on Wednesday, February 11, and details were later shared with State House correspondents, Punch reported.
Fashedemi informed lawmakers that installation work on the solar project was concluded toward the end of 2025, with performance tests beginning in December to determine readiness for a full transition.
Aso Villa's solar switch nearing final phase
“We are hopeful that maybe by March we’ll be able to do a full cutover,” Fashedemi said.
He told senators that the move would reduce operating costs and ease the l burden of electricity expenses at the Villa.
As evidence, he cited the State House Medical Centre, which moved to solar power in May 2025. According to him, the facility has functioned without generators since then.
He stated:
“I have to say that since that time, the generator in that State House Medical Centre has not been put on for one minute since May last year.”
He added:
“Only a couple of months, we used three per cent from AEDC (Abuja Electricity Distribution Company), so the rest has been strictly from the solar and from the battery electric storage system.”
The federal government earmarked N10bn for the solar mini grid project in the 2025 budget, with an additional N7bn provided in the 2026 Appropriation Bill.
Public reaction to the initiative was mixed, with critics arguing that powering the Villa independently reflected deeper challenges within the national electricity supply.
Source: Facebook
Power debts and billing disputes
Officials, however, defended the policy on cost grounds. The Director General of the Energy Commission of Nigeria, Mustapha Abdullahi, previously said the Villa’s annual electricity bill was estimated at N47bn.
Before the solar plan, electricity debts at the complex were close to N1bn. In February 2024, AEDC listed the Villa among top government debtors with an outstanding bill of N923.87m.
After reconciliation, the figure dropped to N342.35m, which President Bola Tinubu ordered to be paid.
Fashedemi told senators that testing of the solar system exposed billing irregularities. He said:
“What we have discovered in the course of all of this, especially during the testing phase, is that there’s been a lot of overbilling.”
He added, “When we’re testing it, a number of the transformers, we’re seeing that they were billing for electricity not supplied.”
National grid collapses
Earlier, Legit.ng reported that Nigeria’s electricity transmission system suffered another major disruption on Tuesday, January 27, as the national grid collapsed for the second time in 2026, throwing large parts of the country into darkness.
The latest grid failure occurred barely four days after a similar incident earlier in the year, compounding concerns over the fragility of Nigeria’s power infrastructure and its ability to support steady electricity supply for households and businesses.
Source: Legit.ng
