Summary:
- Two Facebook Blogs have posted photos claiming they represent the ongoing solar plant construction by the Liberia Electricity Corporation
- The two Facebook blogs made the posts on April 11 following an inspection of the solar project by the newly appointed acting Managing Director of the LEC
- We have fact-checked these photos by using reverse image search and found that the photos are unrelated to Liberia or the LEC project
On April 11, Liberian TV Network, and Shine Liberia posted photos of installed solar panels, claiming they were the ongoing solar plant being constructed by the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC).
The posts followed an inspection by LEC’s newly appointed Acting Managing Director, Mohammed M. Sherif, to the Mount Coffee Hydropower Plant, where he met with contractors working on the development of the 20-megawatt solar power project.
Claim:
The Facebook blogs posted the following words and photographs of solar panels: “The Acting Managing Director of the Liberia Electricity Corporation, Mr. Mohammed Sherif, has confirmed that the country’s first 20-megawatt solar power plant will be completed on schedule—by August 2025.”
Rating Justification
To verify whether the photos shared in the posts were taken at the ongoing solar project, we conducted a Google image search of the photos.
Our search found that the first image appeared online in different articles and publications more than eight years ago.
The images in these Facebook posts appeared online for the first time from a solar project (Ranger Solar) in New England, Southern United States, in a 2017 publication on the website of TRC.
TRC is an American solar company that provides development solutions, including site selection, interconnection, impact assessment, permitting, solar engineering, construction management, amongst others.
The Loddon Herald, a local Australian news outlet, published an article on September 6, 2023, in which the second image is found, explaining the start of a solar project in the country.
According to the article, the photo showed the early stages of a 95-megawatt solar farm being constructed in Derby, Australia, one of six projects announced through the Victorian Government’s Renewable Energy Target (VRET) initiative.
This image has also appeared online in multiple articles and publications in Africa and elsewhere in the world.
Conclusion
Based on these findings, we conclude that the photos posted by Liberian TV Network and Shine Liberia are unrelated to the ongoing LEC solar project in Liberia.
Though the project is ongoing, the images shared by the social media blogs originate from solar projects in different countries and not Liberia.
