Ucunivatu Primary School

Ucunivatu Primary School is on Viani Bay, Vanua Levu, and can only be reached by water. Supplies come from Taveuni, and every boat trip costs about FJ$60 in fuel. The school has 49 students from kindergarten to Year 8, taught by 4 teachers who live in the four teachers' homes at the school.

Before this project, the school had a 15-year-old solar system that was underpowered, poor quality and had failed. The school often had no power at all and was thinking about buying a new diesel generator. Had it gone down that path, we estimated fuel would have cost more than FJ$4,000 a year, plus the significant cost of getting it to the school. Those savings, together with the FJ$90 a term the teachers were happy to pay for 24-hour power, add up to a big increase in electronic resources for the school over the decades ahead.

The 3.5 kW system, installed in February 2018, included 12 Yingli 275 W panels, an SMA SB3000 inverter, an SMA SB6.0 inverter, 19 kWh of SimpliPhi lithium batteries and a new Clenergy ground-mount system. We replaced all the existing lighting in the classrooms and teachers' homes with LED tubes, and rewired the teachers' homes and most of the school.

The project was funded by the Fiji Water Foundation.