why fea stands out among its peers
Why FEA stands out among its peers
Dr Anirudh Singh (Thursday, February 21, 2008)
AMID all the despair and tales of impending economic doom, it is always a welcome feeling to know there may be a ray of hope somewhere.
The Fiji Electricity Authority is an organisation that provides us with such a possibility of hope, even if it is a little glimmer.
It is a body that seems to know where it is going and how to get there.
One of the most important litmus tests of a progressive organisation is its record of meeting its stated aims, and FEA has passed this test repeatedly.
During the past four years, for instance, it completed all four of its planned power generation expansion projects on schedule.
It said it was going renewable in a big way, and all the signs are that it is succeeding in this stated goal.
So what is it about FEA that makes it different from other such organisations, and what are the successes that it can boast?
The price of oil
The country is heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels for its industrial, domestic, transport and power generation needs.
And our import bill has been rising steadily because of this.
In the year 2000, Fiji imported 440 million litres of fossil fuel at a cost of F$332million, which formed 18 per cent of the country's total import bill of $F1.822billion.
In 2006, the import bill had increased to $F1.021billion a whopping 33 per cent of Fiji's total import bill of $F3.119billion.
A significant proportion of this fuel is used for power generation, something that takes on a critical importance when there are water shortages at Monasavu.
These shortages and the rising demand for power have inevitably led to escalating fuel costs for FEA.
In 2006 for instance, the Authority spent $98.6million on diesel fuel for its generators, as compared to $49.9million in 2004 and a mere $19million in 2001.
These huge fuel costs eventually forced FEA to think of indigenous sources of energy as alternatives to imported fossil fuel. It decided to go renewable. Going renewable
The Monasavu hydro scheme, commissioned in 1983, consisted of four 20 MW generators at the Wailoa power station. This was the first major hydro-power station in Fiji, and by the turn of the century, was clearly not meeting Viti Levu's power demands (estimated at some 111 MW in 2004) any more.
In fact, the fraction of power demand met by hydro had been falling rapidly for a long time. In the year 1992, hydro energy from Wailoa Power Station (at Monasavu) supplied 92 per cent of Viti Levu's power needs. By 2000, this had dropped to 79 per cent, with the remainder being mainly supplied by diesel generators.
This ratio had fallen to 49 per cent by 2005. In the meantime, the total power demand had risen from 524GWh in 2000 to 685GWh in 2005.
Clearly Monasavu had to be complemented by other renewable sources of power, and more efficient generators, if the war against imported diesel costs was to be won.
FEA met this challenge by investigating more sources of renewable power sources, including hydro, wind and biomass (energy available in plant matter, including wood, and crop and industry residues) in addition to acquiring more efficient diesel generators.
The Wainikasou mini-hydro station (situated near Monasavu) was commissioned in June 2004 and provides 6 MW of power or 18 GWh per annum of energy.
The Authority next purchased four new Caterpillar generators to expand its Kinoya station's capacity.
Commissioned by the Minister for Works and Energy on 20 January 2006, these were sophisticated and highly efficient diesel generators, each with an installed capacity of 7.45 MW, and controlled by programmable logic control. They could also run on biofuels such as vegetable oil and bio-diesel.
In an effort to reduce the huge fuel costs on the Kinoya diesel generators, the Authority has embarked on converting four of its six large diesel sets at Kinoya to run on heavy fuel oil.
Two of the largest machines (10MW each) have already been converted and were commissioned in August 2007. They are producing savings of more than $0.5million per month, big enough to reduce their conversion cost pay-back period to a mere 18 months.
Next on the list for conversion are two of the new Caterpillar sets. These machines will be capable of running on both industrial diesel oil (IDO) as well as heavy fuel oil.
The Nagado hydro-electric scheme that FEA installed next was a rather ingenious use of ready-existent hydro potential.
In this 2.8 MW scheme, the Authority installed a turbine between the Vaturu Dam in the interior of Ba and the Nagado water treatment plant. The scheme was commissioned in May 2006.
To continue their search for renewable energy sources, the Authority went to Sigatoka, where, at Butoni, they found wind conditions that were favourable for a wind energy farm.
The Butoni wind farm consists of 37 Vergnet wind turbines each with a maximum capacity of 0.275 MW, and produces a total of 10 MW of power or 12 GWh energy per annum of energy when fully operational.
It was launched by the interim Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama on October 26, 2007.
The addition of the Butoni wind farm has brought FEA's present electricity generation capacity on Viti Levu to 166 MW, compared to the current maximum demand of about 125 MW.
Staying focused
So what's the secret behind FEA's ostensible success?
In its 2005 annual report, the chairman of FEA states that in 2001 there was a move to "reform FEA into an adaptive, dynamic and efficient organisation".
More clues are contained in the CEO's report, which refers to the "start of structural and cultural reforms" in the earlier year. It does not state what exactly was meant by "cultural reforms". Evidently, it had something to do with the way the whole FEA community thought and behaved. Maybe you could call it a change in the FEA ethos.
One should also not forget the shock awakening of FEA to the realities of life when in 2000, Speight's accomplices sabotaged Monasavu and wreaked havoc with the whole island's energy supply. But whatever the secret was, it seemed to have worked. The CEO's report goes on to say that the everchanging dynamics of the electricity industry have challenged the Authority to "stay focused, efficient and adaptive to change". The most operative word here, to my mind, is "focused". FEA's mission statement states that it aims "to provide clean and affordable energy solutions".
One of its strategic aims has been to provide at least 90 per cent of all energy through renewable resources by 2011. It has stuck to this goal and delivered with amazing faithfulness and punctuality.
Its track record speaks for itself.
In keeping with its renewable and clean energy aims, it had, by 2007, completed the Wainikasou mini-hydro, the Kinoya power station expansion, the Nagado hydro scheme and the Butoni wind farm project. This sort of resolve and faithful adherence to vision and mission cannot be said of other corporatised statutory bodies. Other organisations have become too engrossed delivering hefty profits through activities not exactly related to their original goals.
Somewhere along the line, such organisations seem to have forgotten what their core functions were.
This is often to the detriment of the core service it provides to its customers.
Future energy needs
To achieve its aim of going substantially renewable by the year 2011, FEA plans to utilise all commonly-known forms of renewable energy available in Fiji. The next three projects will utilise biomass, as well as installing a new hydropower scheme.
The first of the proposed biomass power stations will be a 3.0 MW station at Deuba, which will be fueled by 26,000 tonnes per annum of mahogany logging waste supplied by the Fiji Hardwood Corporation. A second 2.0 MW biomass power station is to be built in Savusavu, Vanua Levu, in the Valaga Bay area.
This will use 22,000 tonnes of timber mill waste per annum supplied by the nearby sawmill in the form of coconut tree waste. Perhaps the crowning glory of FEA's recent power developments will be provided by the Nadarivatu hydro scheme, coupled with the expansion of the Wailoa Power Station.
A new 40 MW run-of-the-river hydropower station at Nadarivatu will be built by FEA.The expansion of the Wailoa hydro power station will consist of the addition of another penstock (the pipe leading from the reservoir to the turbine), providing an additional 8 MW power, and the installation of a fifth generating unit with a 20 MW capacity.
There are also plans to add another 40MW of hydro capacity by using the water from Wailoa River, downstream of the Wailoa Hydro Station. A series of run-of-the-river turbines which will re-use the water already exhausted from the Wailoa Power Station, thus improving the overall efficiency of the Monasavu Hydro Scheme. This scheme is ranked ahead of the penstock addition as it will lead to greater gains at the same cost. The F$160million Nadarivatu project is expected to be fully operational by the year 2010. Tenders have already being called for this project.
In an effort to squeeze further gains from the Monasavu Hydro Scheme, the Authority is planning to raise the height of its main weir at Wainisavulevu in the hydro catchment area to allow a larger amount of water to be entrained, hence improving the energy output from both the Wailoa Power Station as well as the Wainikasou mini-hydro by another 7.6 GWh per year.
Independent Power Providers
To fully meet the future energy demands of the nation, the Authority will purchase power from Independent Power Providers (or IPPs for short).
So far, two such existing IPPs that sell power to FEA are the Fiji Sugar Corporation (FSC) and Tropik Wood Industries Ltd. FSC and Tropik Wood (through its energy subsidiary Tropik Energy Ltd) are planning to step up power production once their new power installations are in place in the near future.
Both these companies will be co-generating power using their biomass waste products bagasse in the case of FSC and hog fuel (i.e. timber milling waste) in the case of Tropik Energy Ltd. Tropik's 9.3 MW Drasa plant is now being commissioned to take up commercial production before the end of February while another 20 MW plant is planned for Natadola, using fuelwood from specially planted trees.
The challenges for Fiji's energy sector
There are several challenges that Fiji will face in meeting its energy objectives.
Firstly, for the systematic utilisation of renewable energy in a country, one must start from a national energy blueprint which assures the nation's commitment to this cause, outlines the requirements for the development of the energy sector, sets guidelines and benchmarks, apportions the resources and indicates timelines.
Such a masterplan for the energy sector development of Fiji has already been realised in the National Energy Plan put together by the Department of Energy. This was approved by Cabinet on November 21, 2006. For a thorough and exhaustive analysis of the country's true renewable energy potential, however, the country must have the relevant institutional capacity and human resources.
Both of these are in short supply in the PICs, and Fiji is no exception.
There is a shortage of personnel with knowledge, know-how and understanding of the field at all levels. The country still depends largely on overseas experts and consultants for the development of its renewable energy resources.
To add to the woes, local engineers and technicians who have become specialists in their respective areas of work, continue to leave the country, leaving the nation drained of scarce human capital in areas critical for national infrastructural development.
There are few training institutions that specialise in the training of scientific and technical staff for the assessment, development and utilisation of renewable energy resources in Fiji and the other PICs.
The most notable Fiji-based institutions that are capable are the University of the South Pacific, the Fiji Institute of Technology and the Training and Productivity Authority of Fiji. At the moment, however, none of these offer a comprehensive and coherent study/training program dedicated to renewable energy training and development.
It is incumbent upon these institutions to produce substantive strategies and action plans to fill this local person-power vacuum.
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Dr Anirudh Singh is an Associate Professor in Physics at USP, and President of the South Pacific Physics Society. Readers may share their views with him at singh_agusp.ac.fj mailto:singh_agusp.ac.fj>
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the institutions he is associated with.
