The details make renewables a challenge
An effort to electrify remote islands in the Pacific has received major donor backing. While the benefit of lights and the ability to run such equipment as ice boxes in distant island locations is self-evident, these donor projects are fraught with pitfalls often not addressed by island officials.
As donors line up to fund solar equipment that supports alternative energy manufacturers in their nations, the hurdles to maintaining service once installation is complete are huge. Remote islands in the Pacific are littered with the detritus of renewable energy projects gone wrong: equipment provided with no means for sustaining it. The challenges range from the recipient country’s lack of resources to sustain operations to the swift decline of equipment in these harsh, salt-air environments.
People need to look beyond the ribbon cutting after installation to the details of operations and maintenance to know if these substantial aid projects will still be providing benefits one or more years down the track. The Marshall Islands has gone through several phases as it nears the 95 percent mark for home installation of solar equipment on outer islands. About 20 years ago, the French government was the first to provide solar gear to one outer atoll in the Marshalls in an uncoordinated, one-off aid project that, not surprisingly, failed within a short time for lack of maintenance and spare parts. By the late 1990s, the Ministry of Resources and Development, which coordinates renewable energy programs, partnered with the government’s national utility Marshalls Energy Company for the installation of solar equipment in homes and community facilities on remote islands. This helped because it linked the utility and its cadre of trained technicians to installation and maintenance. The government instituted a $12 monthly fee charged to all recipients to create a maintenance fund. But this proved difficult to collect on islands where most residents’ income is under US$1,000 a year. The fee was later reduced to US$5 per month and even this greatly reduced amount has been a challenge — not only because of the lack of cash on outer islands, but also people’s attitudes conditioned by decades of donor projects where everything is provided gratis with no local contribution. The latest permutation of fee collection, under a European Union-supported SPC-managed effort in the north Pacific, is to involve the national women’s group Women United Together Marshall Islands in a partnership to manage payments through handicraft and sales of other goods produced by women in these communities.
Even if the money is available, technology of any kind is an issue to manage on remote islands. The drought relief aid provided to the northern Marshall Islands since April initially focused on installing small reverse osmosis water-making units on affected islands. The ROs provided needed relief, but took Herculean efforts by the Majuro-based utility company, Majuro Water and Sewer Company, to keep the units in working order. Constant visits by water technicians are required to bring units back to Majuro for maintenance and reinstall new units on the islands. Complicating the maintenance this, technicians often can’t get to the islands as scheduled because the government airline’s plane was down. An International Red Cross representative made the point after several months of drought relief work in the Marshall Islands that RO units were not a long-term solution to drought problems because of the difficulty keeping them operating in this environment.
Dr. Jimmie Rodgers, the Director General of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, pointed out during a media conference on climate issues during the Pacific Islands Forum in Majuro that the combination of islands that don’t have renewable energy road maps with donor agendas is often not a happy mix. Rodgers commented on the lack of donor coordination in provision of equipment, such that one small country could have solar systems provided by three or more donors, none of which have compatible parts.
Finally, out-migration from remote islands has seen the percentage of people living in rural areas drop everywhere in the region. In the Marshalls, outer islands populations have dropped from 40 percent of the overall population to just 26 percent in 30 years, a point that underscores the need for rethinking large investments in remote islands in light of decreasing numbers.
Meanwhile, despite the renewable energy focus of European Union, Taiwan, Japan and other donor funds on remote communities, it is urban centers where skyrocketing power costs over the past decade have hurt quality of life, deepening poverty in towns and cities. With migration an obvious fact in all Pacific nations, home and family energy needs in urban centers clearly needs more attention.
In the Marshalls, the Marshalls Energy Company is now looking for funding for a one-megawatt solar installation — 800,000 KW for Majuro and 200,000 for Ebeye Island, the second urban center — that will be grid-connected. Assuming it goes ahead, it will reduce diesel fuel use by about US$300,000 a year at current prices.
But while islands have stepped up the volume talking about climate threats, in some cases the action at home doesn’t match the rhetoric. In the Marshall Islands, it took the Cabinet a year to endorse the power utility’s urban renewable energy plans. And with a few notable exceptions, most government buildings use excessive amounts of diesel-produced electricity for non-energy efficient air conditioning. For its part, the national utility estimates it has power losses estimated at 25 percent — a problem it has been working to correct.
It is the attention to detail that vexes many islands, particularly those used to depending on aid handouts. Dr. Rodgers is blunt on this point. ‘There is no point in renewable energy at a high cost while islands are still using incandescent lights and air conditioners that are not energy efficient,’ he said in Majuro in early September. The issue is political will in government to make and enforce policy decisions. ‘With political will, the whole Pacific could be incandescent bulb-free in one year,’ he says. Addressing the cost of incandescent bulbs, inefficient refrigerators and air conditioners — that account for 10 to 15 percent of power bills — and the 20 percent or more losses by power plants could cut the power bill — and use of fossil fuel — by 30-to-40 percent.
‘We can have renewable energy, but if we don’t improve our energy efficiency it won’t do much,’ he says. And this confirms the old axiom: The devil is in the details. If we want to do our part, as little as it may be, against global warming, there is plenty of work to do.
