Hundreds of children in the interior of Namosi are set to benefit from a new solar power system at Wainimakutu Secondary School.
The school has been running on a diesel-powered generator, which gives them power for about four hours in the day and four hours in the evenings for study.
Opening the solar system yesterday, Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama says this will change now as the students and teachers will now have a constant source of power.
Bainimarama says having a cleaner, greener, more affordable and more sustainable source of power is important for the health of the national economy.
Fiji’s future depends on us developing alternative forms of energy to the fossil fuels, like diesel, that we currently have to buy from overseas. We simply cannot afford to keep spending around $1-billion a year on our national fuel bill, because it is depriving us of dollars that we could be using to continue to improve our service delivery program.
Bainimarama says the only way to cut our fuel bill is to either use less power or develop alternative sources.
Funded by the Fiji Water Foundation in partnership with Australia’s i-Time Foundation, the 20 panel state of the art solar system will produce 4,800 watts of electricity.
The project costs around $100, 000.
