South Taveuni Secondary School

South Taveuni Secondary School sits beside South Taveuni Primary School, just past the road junction south of Paradise Taveuni resort, and the two schools share one solar system. The secondary school has 303 students and 27 teachers.

We installed a 6 kW system here in 2015 to power what was then a smaller high school, with the support of the Fiji Water Foundation. Tropical Cyclone Winston damaged the batteries in 2016, and although the system kept working, it wasn't meeting our expectations.

So in November 2022 we enlarged the system and fitted new, state-of-the-art equipment, with Clenergy as lead financial sponsor and the support of a range of others. The 15 kW system supplied 24-hour power to both schools, which together expected to save about A$17,000 a year – a significant, ongoing boost to their budget for computers and other resources. It included 18 Yingli 250 W and 27 Canadian Solar 380 W panels, an OutBack FLEXpower THREE inverter set, four OutBack chargers, 12 SimpliPhi PHI 3.8 kWh lithium batteries in a BOSS12 cabinet, and Clenergy ground-mount and roof-mount systems. Alongside general electrical works, three school buildings were fully wired. A backup generator could top up the batteries when needed, but we expected that to be rare, helped by the schools' commitment to saving energy. The 21 teachers' homes on the school grounds were outside the scope of that project.

In 2026 the system was upgraded again through the Australian Government's REnew Pacific program, to a 24 kW array with 79.2 kWh of battery storage, and the school received Starlink internet, laptops and smart TVs. The system is now part of The Solar Fund (Fiji), which monitors it and pays for its servicing and repairs.

Thank you to Clenergy, our lead sponsor for the 2022 project, and to our other business partners and supporters. As always, our thanks go to CBS Power Solutions for partnering with us on the installation.