THE Rural Electrification Agency, REA, has reacted to fact-check published by The ICIR on Monday, which debunked the claim that it has commissioned “the largest off-grid solar hybrid power plant” in Bayero University Kano (BUK).

The claim was made earlier in September by REA’s Managing Director, Damilola Ogunbiyi, and has been repeated by others, including Minister of Power Saleh Mamman.

The ICIR found a solar plant in Burkina Faso, also hybrid and off-grid, that has a capacity much larger than that of the recently unveiled project in BUK.

Fabien Cadaut, the Africa Energy Business Area Marketing Manager of Wärtsilä, the company that built the hybrid plant in Burkina Faso, confirmed that the project “is to date the world’s largest solar hybrid project and therefore larger than the one delivered in Nigeria”.

But reacting to the report on Tuesday, Ayang Ogbe, REA’s Director of Promotions (Information and Outreach), insisted that REA’s claim is correct and that the fact-check is presenting a “wrong impression”.

“You cannot say that apple is similar to orange,” the REA said during a phone conversation. “What I’m saying is they have different components. If you go to do any search about solar hybrid plants, you’ll see a thousand and one of them. But what we have in BUK is unique.”

In an email later sent to The ICIR by Ogbe, he said the plant in Burkina Faso does not qualify as a solar hybrid power plant but a “hybrid fuel/solar plant” because solar energy is not the dominant energy source.

“The Burkina Faso Project in question is synched to a 55 MW heavy oil fuel plant which makes it a hybrid fuel/solar plant (according to PV magazine) because heavy oil is the dominant source of energy,” he said.

“It is important to note that in the newest technology for solar hybrid powerplants, the PV component should be higher than any other component, which is provided in the Energizing Education BUK project. We maintain that the 7.1MW BUK project is the largest solar hybrid project with Battery storage in Africa.”

https://www.icirnigeria.org/rea-says-fact-check-on-buk-hybrid-solar-plant-is-incorrect-so-we-took-a-closer-look/