Transcript
An energy specialist from the World Bank addressed the 25th Pacific Power Association Conference in Nuku'alofa. Kamleshwar Khelawan says there are around 7 million people who cannot access electricity in the Pacific, meaning only 20 percent of households can. Although this is skewed by the larger populations of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
"The Melanesian countries, excluding Fiji, have an access problem. They have large populations but the penetration of electricity is low. The Polynesian countries have very good access rates and they have achieved these over the last several years and the Micronesian countries up north have a mix of fairly good access but they are again relying fairly heavily on imported fossil fuels."
The Pacific Power Association's executive director, Andrew Daka, says governments can't afford to sustain utilities on their own, and investment is needed through public-private partnerships. Mr Daka says the Pacific energy sector is characterised by outdated and unclear legislation.
"A lot of the regulatory issues have not been updated as such as it should in utility operations as we speak. Most of that is outdated and relevant for a period when most of that was part of the government infrastructure and now with the changing energy markets, there needs to be reform."
Mr Khelawan says if issues are sorted the Pacific has the opportunity to become global leaders in electricity innovation. He says the region has some unique problems which also create unique opportunities. Mr Khelawan says although many of the islands are dispersed over a large area, are small, and have very small loads so economies of scale are hard to achieve, there are opportunities for countries to come up with innovative solutions in meeting their needs.
"For example looking at more desegregated plug and play systems for the very remote communities, focussing on mini and micro grids instead of the large grids that larger countries are familiar with. These are some of the areas that where Pacific islands can become leaders in innovation and create solutions."
Andrew Daka is hopeful that governments around the region will heed the call.
"One of the issues that we have discussed at the board meeting is to welcome the participation of island governments at the next year's conference in Apia so that we have all the stakeholders involved in the discussions. The governments, the private sector, the government partners and the utility services so we are all informed of the same issues."
From those meetings investors are hoping government priorities will become clearer, incentives for bankable projects identified and access to finance and risk management products improved.
