Workshop on High Penetration Variable Renewables in Pacific Island Countries: Small grids and Off-grid

Friday, December 7, 2018, UNSW Sydney, Colombo Theatres

Pacific Island nations have ambitious targets for renewable energy penetration, and have been making significant recent progress towards these goals. There are, however, a number of technical and institutional challenges arising, both in serving remote dispersed off-grid end-users, and as variable renewable energy (VRE) penetration levels increase on what are often relatively small grids.

UNSW Institute for Global Development and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency’s Knowledge Sharing Program (Mission Innovation Challenge 2) have provided funding for UNSW, USP and partners CSIRO, IT Power Australia and GSES (Australian RE companies working in the Pacific) to engage with stakeholders to identify key challenges and needs of Pacific Island nations in reaching high RE penetrations. A workshop is held in conjunction with the Asia-Pacific Solar Energy Research Conference at UNSW Sydney, 4-6th December 2018. The aims of the workshop are to:

  • Discuss the challenges and opportunities of introducing more variable renewable energy into small grid and off grid contexts in the Pacific
  • Hear from a range of invited speakers regarding the status of VRE integration, key challenges and solutions to facilitate high penetration VRE in small grids and improved off grid energy service delivery
  • Identify potential future work to address key issues and themes arising in the discussion

 

Presentations

Title Author Links
Introduction to the Workshop Iain MacGill
Overview of Status and Challenges for RE in the Pacific Atul Raturi, USP
Targets, Planning and Roadmaps for Variable Renewable Energy Upscaling James Hazelton, ITP Renewables
Utility Experience in the Pacific region with high penetration VRE Andrew Daka, PPA
RE Development in Kiribati Tiaon Aukitino, Energy Planning Unit, MISE
Enabling Higher Penetration Solar Power in Microgrids Saad Sayeef, CSIRO
Tonga Renewable Energy Roadmap Pesalili Tohi, Tonga Power Limited
High Penetration of Renewable Energy in Pacific Island Nations Chris Martell, GSES
High Penetration VRE’s in Pacific Island Countries: Small grids and Off-grid Janendra Prasad, SolomonPower
Pacific Renewable Energy Transition Anthony Maxwell, Asian Development Bank
Penetration of Variable Renewables in the Pacific Island Countries – Small grids and Off grid Kamleshwar Khelawan, World Bank Group
Variable Renewable Energy in Somoa Vanda Faasoa and Chan Ting - Ministry of Natural Resources & Environment, Samoa
Financing, Policy & Governance Challenges and Opportunities Muriel Watt, ITP Renewables
Small grids and Off-grid Katerina Syngellakis, Pacific Regional Representative