Rabi High School

Rabi High School is where It's Time Foundation began. Our founder, Rob Edwards OAM, was on a dive trip when he saw how much remote Fijian schools needed solar power, and in 2008 Rabi High became our pilot site. The small system we installed was undersized, but it served the school office and building until it failed in 2015.

In 2018, thanks to the Fiji Water Foundation, we installed a larger system for the students, the teachers, 12 teachers' homes and the two boarding hostels, where 40 students from nearby islands lived. At the time the school had two diesel generators, one of them waiting to be repaired. Repairs since 2015 had cost more than FJ$10,000, and fuel and its transport were costing the school about FJ$11,000 a year for six hours of power during the day and three hours at night for the teachers. The new system replaced all of that with 24-hour power. The fuel and repair savings, along with the FJ$90 a term the teachers were happy to pay for 24-hour power, went into laptops and other electronic resources for the school.

The 2018 system included 24 Yingli 275 W panels, an SMA SB5000 inverter, an SMA SI8.0 inverter, eight SimpliPhi PHI 3.4 batteries and a new Clenergy ground-mount system. We replaced most of the tube lighting in the teachers' homes and some classrooms with LED tubes. The main classrooms used for night study had recently been fitted with globe holders in place of the tubes (something we had recommended to the Ministry in 2016). We didn't have LED globes with us, so the school bought them from its fuel savings.

The system served the school reasonably well, but by 2026 it needed upgrading to meet the growing needs of a high school. Through the Australian Government's REnew Pacific program, it now has an 18 kW three-phase array of Trina panels and 59.4 kWh of Briggs & Stratton lithium batteries, along with 10 laptops, two smart TVs and networked Starlink internet. A generator is kept as backup for the rare occasions it's needed. Rabi High now has 210 students and 17 teachers, with classes from Year 9 to Year 13.

Rabi was one of the toughest logistics challenges we have ever faced, and as our first pilot project it holds a very special place in the history of It's Time Foundation. The system is now part of The Solar Fund (Fiji), which monitors it and pays for its servicing and repairs.