Saki's first full year on the grid
Eighteen months after we switched on Saki, the town has 9,400 customers and close to 20 hours of supply a day. Here is what changed, and what still needs work.
Read onSolar · 2 October 2026
Ibarapa gets 20 MWh of batteries
The solar farm now stores its midday surplus and releases it after dark, which keeps Lanlate and Igbo-Ora lit through the evening peak.
Reading time
4 min
Published
2 October 2026
The problem
Solar makes most of its power at noon, but the Ibarapa towns use the most power at 8pm. Without storage, the farm's best hours were not the towns' best hours.
The fix
Twenty megawatt-hours of batteries now sit in eight containers beside the farm. They charge from midday surplus and release it between 6pm and 10pm.
The batteries turned a daytime solar farm into a night-time power station.
What changed
Evening outages on the Lanlate and Igbo-Ora mini-grids fell from nine a month to one. The backup gas engine ran for just 31 hours in October.
What is next
A second battery block is planned for 2027, so the towns can run on the sun for most of the night.
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