The IPCC Special Report released this past August reconfirms that Climate Change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying, "and some trends are now irreversible". The impacts on societies, ecosystems, food security and livelihoods around the world will be catastrophic. Readmore. Contact online >>
The IPCC Special Report released this past August reconfirms that Climate Change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying, "and some trends are now irreversible". The impacts on societies, ecosystems, food security and livelihoods around the world will be catastrophic. Readmore..
4 August 2021, Suva Fiji: The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) virtually launched the regional Pacific Green Entrepreneurs Network (PGEN), a 3-year project implemented by GGGI and funded by the Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD). The Network will offer annual incubation and accelerator programs targeted at green and sustainable businesses (particularly those led by women and youth) in 6 Pacific Islands: Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu.
In delivering his keynote Address on regional perspective, PIDF Secretary General, Ambassador Solo Mara, emphasized the PGEN initiative is one of the growing number of platforms that the PIDF is collaborating with the GGGI. See More
THE PACIFIC GREEN ENTREPRENUERS NETWORK IS OFFICIALLY LAUNCHING!!!
REGISTER NOW: GGGI Pacific Green Entrepreneurship Network will be officially launched on 4th August at 11am (Fiji time)!
Pacific Green Entrepreneurs Network Project Details
The regional Pacific Green Entrepreneurs Network (PGEN) is a 3-year project implemented by Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and funded by the Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD). The Network will offer annual incubation and accelerator programs targeted at green and sustainable businesses (particularly those led by women and youth) in 6 Pacific Islands: Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu. View More
Suva Fiji, 25 November 2020: The PIDF Secretariat was represented by its Secretary General, Ambassador Solo Mara, in the Third Asia-Pacific Forum for South-South & Triangular Cooperation which was virtually on Wednesday and focussed on the Role of South-South Cooperation in Building Back Better from the COVID-19 Pandemic in Asia and the Pacific. The forum was organised jointly by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) and their Partners.
11 September 2020, SuvaA Letter of Intent was signed between the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) and the Institute of Applied Sciences (IAS), University of the South Pacific (USP) at the PIDF Secretariat. This engagement foresees a collaboration in promoting the sustainable development agenda through empowering resource owners and communities in the Pacific.
8 September 2020, Suva: The PIDF Secretariat welcomed Dr. Jay D. Lincoln, Charge d'' Affairs of the Embassy of the Republic of Palau based in Suva. The Republic of Palau became the latest member of PIDF at COP23 in 2017 making it the organisation''s 14th member and 12th member state. The PIDF Secretary General, Ambassador Solo Mara, congratulated the opening of the Embassy in Fiji and looks forward to working closely with the Embassy in helping our Pacific Island transition towards a sustainable Green-Blue Economy. The Charge d'' Affairs echoed similar sentiments and noted the importance of nurturing and expanding small sustainable projects through genuine partnerships for the benefit of our Pacific people.
We, the People of the Pacific Islands Development Forum, Striving to advance the sustainable and inclusive development of Pacific Island nations,Dedicated to the goals of poverty eradication, environmental preservation and to addressing the challenges of the current anthropogenic climate change crisis;Advocating for a paradigm shift to foster coherence between Climate Change mitigation and adaptation actions, environmental protection and resilience development;
This paper summarizes some of the ways in which increased use of renewable energy can reduce vulnerability of nations and communities to hydro-meteorological disasters (i.e. enhance their resilience). It uses examples mainly from the small island countries of the Pacific, as the issues raised are particularly pertinent there. In particular, distributed electricity generation reduces vulnerability of supply to severe weather.
This paper summarizes some of the ways in which increased use of renewable energy (RE) can reduce vulnerability of nations and communities to hydro-meteorological disasters (i.e. enhance their resilience). It uses examples mainly from the small island countries of the Pacific, as the issues raised are particularly pertinent there.
Energy security refers to the reliability of energy supplies on which modern economies rely. It is a major issue in many countries after a disaster event. A well-documented case is the small Caribbean island of Puerto Rico in the months following Hurricane Maria in 2017. Even though it is a US Territory, most families and businesses there remained without power, cell phone service was limited, and clean water, food, medicine and fuel were all in very short supply (Mercy Corps 2020). The performance then of photovoltaic systems, installed either before or shortly after the hurricane, offers lessons for other island countries, including Small Island Developing States (SIDS) (Limperis 2017).
The 14 independent Pacific Island Countries (PICs) comprise many islands scattered across a very large area of ocean. For example, Fiji has over 300 islands, though two are much larger and more heavily populated than the rest. The geographical fragmentation of the Pacific island countries, their remoteness and their small size are fundamental constraints on their economic development (Briguglio 1995; Connell 2013).
Consequently, Pacific Island governments, and the various regional organizations that serve them, are very concerned about sustainable development, and in particular about the extent to which it is threatened by climate change (Pacific Islands Forum 2018). A key document is the Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific, developed and agreed in 2016 by the main regional organizations working on climate change (FRDP 2016). The Framework outlines an ''integrated approach to address climate change and disaster risk management''. It offers to island governments (and regional organisations) a set of ''voluntary guidelines for the Pacific region''. Of particular relevance is Goal 2, Low Carbon Development, about which the Framework notes:
''This goal will contribute to having more resilient energy infrastructure in place, and to increase energy security, while decreasing net emissions of greenhouse gases''.
In particular, there is already significant RE installed in most Pacific Island countries, especially in the form of ''centralized'' hydropower on the larger hillier islands and solar photovoltaic (PV), which in the form of small-scale ''solar home systems'' sets is widespread especially in more remote areas and islands (Weir 2018), but has also been taken up in Suva''s informal settlements (Devi et al. 2017). With the price of PV having greatly fallen over the past decade, expansion of PV capacity—including grid-connected PV—is expected to increase further, usually with assistance from external donors such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the aid agencies of Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
Greenhouse gas emissions from PICs are only a tiny contribution to global emissions (< 0.1%). So, even cutting island GHG emissions to zero would make negligible physical impact on sea-level rise, which coupled with storm surges, threatens to make much of Kiribati and other atoll states uninhabitable within 30 years (Storlazzi et al. 2018). But such action can nevertheless increase resilience in the medium term and set a strong moral example to those larger nations which dominate global emissions, as recognized by the 2018 meeting of island leaders (Pacific Islands Forum 2018).
More specifically, we list here some examples of how RE is already contributing to energy security and disaster recovery, and can do so even more in future.
There are now tens of thousands of ''solar home systems'' operating in the rural areas and remoter islands of the Pacific. Each comprises a small PV panel, with batteries and ancillaries sufficient to meet the basic needs of a single house for lighting, cooling (fans) and recharging of small devices, at much lower cost than fossil alternatives (Marshall Islands 2018). In the newer installations, the PV panels are mounted on the ground or on special poles which withstand cyclones better than most Pacific rooftops (Weir 2018). Many households also have at least one portable ''solar lamp''. All this enables repairs and other services (e.g. nursing and communications) to operate when they are most needed.
Less reliance on erratic supplies of imported fuel. PV systems enable power for telecommunications, lighting and refrigeration (especially of fish and medicines) to continue after fuel supplies are cut off. This is particularly important for communities on islands away from the main port of a country, as all fuel for such places, used for outboard motors and also for diesel generators (where they have not been replaced by PV) has to be transshipped by small boats, whose service is often erratic at the best of times. In the current pandemic, quarantine rules discourage even supplies to the main port.
Drinkable water is often paradoxically difficult to find after a cyclone or other disasters. Although they are fairly rare in the Pacific because of the high average rainfall on most islands, robust solar-powered water pumps and desalination units can meet this need; such units are commercially available and in wide use in Africa (Qazi 2017, ch 5).
The concept of resilience, though closely related to ''adaptive capacity'', is often taken to have more emphasis on capacity of a community to cope in the immediate aftermath of a hazard event. Short-term needs include having on the spot a trained first aider and supplies kept specially of drinkable water and preserved foods. Various national organizations, notably the Red Cross, strongly support such preparedness. For energy, it requires the robust energy equipment to be already in place, and not contingent on delivery from some aid centre in the capital as some of the literature envisages [e.g. (Boguess 2017)], as such delivery can take weeks or even months to ''outer islands'' in some PICs.
In the Pacific Islands, resilience on all time frames is greatly assisted by social capital in the form of the still strong traditional culture of self-help across a community (village) (Nakamura and Kanemasu 2020; Neef et al. 2018; Warrick et al. 2017). This factor may not be so strong elsewhere.
Aid and internal government funding have also provided the capital cost of many small solar home systems for off-grid locations, though many others have been privately funded; a major issue for these is ensuring maintenance and cash flow for continuing operation, including battery replacement as required (Weir 2018). Particular consideration should be given to microgrid systems which would normally be grid-connected but can be operated independently as separate ''islands'' if the grid goes down in an emergency.
The book by Qazi (2017) is a useful text on the basics of a variety of PV systems, but his discussion of PV use in disasters emphasizes the use of ''mobile systems'' (e.g. mounted in a shipping container) which can be quickly deployed to areas needing power but still fairly accessible by road or other transport. Such areas are rare in archipelagic island states like most of the Pacific Islands. A report for the World Bank on resilience of power systems focuses on large-scale utilities, for which it rightly emphasizes the importance of system-wide risk analysis (Brown et al. 2016).
Renewable energy (RE), coupled with improved energy efficiency, can enhance island resilience to natural hazards and economic shocks by reducing the need for expensive and sometimes unreliable fuel imports. There is significant use of RE in the Pacific Islands already and potential for more. Distributed electricity generation reduces vulnerability of supply to severe weather.
We thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Climate2020 online conference (available at https://dl4sd /).
About Island microgrids suva
As the photovoltaic (PV) industry continues to evolve, advancements in Island microgrids suva have become critical to optimizing the utilization of renewable energy sources. From innovative battery technologies to intelligent energy management systems, these solutions are transforming the way we store and distribute solar-generated electricity.
When you're looking for the latest and most efficient Island microgrids suva for your PV project, our website offers a comprehensive selection of cutting-edge products designed to meet your specific requirements. Whether you're a renewable energy developer, utility company, or commercial enterprise looking to reduce your carbon footprint, we have the solutions to help you harness the full potential of solar energy.
By interacting with our online customer service, you'll gain a deep understanding of the various Island microgrids suva featured in our extensive catalog, such as high-efficiency storage batteries and intelligent energy management systems, and how they work together to provide a stable and reliable power supply for your PV projects.
