REA, Huawei Conduct Nigeria’s First Authoritative AFCI Test for Inverters to address PV Safety Challenge

To lead the electricity industry in quality improvement and set safety benchmarks, the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) recently partnered with Huawei to conduct Nigeria's first specialized AFCI function test for PV inverters. The test, performed under strict simulations of real-world fault scenarios, was successful and verified the ability of the inverter products to accurately detect and swiftly eliminate DC arc risks.

The success of the test not only demonstrates the effectiveness of advanced safety technologies in complex environments, but also provides crucial technical evidence and practical reference for Nigeria to establish and refine PV equipment entry standards and regulate market practices.

The AFCI test launched by REA marks a solid step forward for Nigeria in transitioning its PV industry from "rapid development" to "high-quality development." The agency calls on all key stakeholders including government, regulators, and enterprises to work together to accelerate the establishment of a comprehensive quality supervision and safety standards system covering product, system design, installation, operation, and maintenance.

“This will ensure that every PV power plant put into operation becomes a safe and reliable source of clean energy, while safeguarding the healthy and sustainable development of Nigeria's PV industry”.

As Nigeria's photovoltaic (PV) industry experiences rapid development and its applications become increasingly widespread, safety hazards arising from product quality and system deficiencies, including fire risks, have become an urgent challenge for the sector. The collaboration with Huawei, a global leader in smart PV solutions, marks a critical step toward building a safe PV industry ecosystem.

The collaboration with the technology giant is timely at a time when Nigeria is actively promotes its energy transition, the lack of stringent entry standards and regulations has posed some challenges and led to uneven product quality in the market, among which fire incidents are particularly alarming.

Mitigating the risk therefore becomes imperative and the key lies in adopting advanced technological measures starting with the system's core equipment. Inverters equipped with built-in AFCI functionality have become the widely recognized effective solution in the industry. AFCI continuously monitors the circuit, intelligently identifies arc characteristics, and rapidly cuts off the circuit within milliseconds, thereby significantly reducing the likelihood of fires caused by DC arc faults.