Energising Solomon Islands’ Malaita community with affordable solar power

A partnership to energise Solomon Island’s Malaita community with affordable solar power

Context

Over 87% of the Solomon Islands are without energy access and this particularly affects women living in rural areas, restricting their access to economic development activities.

About the initiative

Electrification has vast potential to unlock many benefits for Solomon Islands communities, including improving the quality of life for local women by enabling them to access more opportunities for economic empowerment.

The partnership’s approach is a hub and spoke model, which seeks to develop an adaptable, scalable and economically viable model for addressing the challenges of rural electrification. It will set up a large off-grid solar system – the hub – at Takataka in East Are’are, Malaita. This will provide mains-quality power to run income generating assets that boost the community’s climate resilience. It will work with West Are’are Rokotanikeni Association to engage with the local community to sell affordable household and solar freezer kits – the spokes – via a subscription model that is locally-driven and culturally tailored with consideration to gender and social contexts. This will enable the local community to access reliable and affordable power connections in their home, improving their quality of life.

The partnership aims to enable the East Are’are community to enjoy increased energy services at a household and community level, boosting local economic activity and climate resilience due to the newly provided services. It will also serve as a pilot for a scalable approach to the challenge of electrification in rural and remote communities in the Solomon Islands.

Key contributions from partners

• Superfly will provide engineering, procurement, construction of the central hub solar power system and supply household solar kits and other community identified assets.
• Save the Children Solomon Islands will provide safeguarding and gender and inclusion training and support the development of organizational policies and practices for the partnership.
• Mai-Ma’asina Green Belt will manage the community hub and its assets.
• The Australian Governmentwill contribute catalytic funding. It will also connect partners to networks, provide support through the BPP in gender and disability inclusion, business models, safeguards and impact measurement, as well as support with communications to enable national and global recognition.

Hear from our partners

Gavin Pereira | Director, Superfly

“Superfly is very grateful to DFAT, MMGB and Save the Children Solomon Islands for the chance to pilot the hub and spoke electrification approach. We cannot wait to share video of the solar charging station, and the electric outboard boat taking its first voyage for the community, or the first photos of the community partaking in adult education classes in the newly provided computer lab. We are sure to, that the local fishing communities will derive great economic opportunity from the centralised cold storage facilities and that the households will enjoy the lighting and device charging services offered by their solar home systems! This project uses a multi-faceted approach to electrification that we hope will be an economic engine that will boost liveilhoods for the people of Takataka and will hopefully be replicable for other Solomon Islands communities.” Gavin Pereira | Director, Superfly

Edgar Pollard | Coordinator, Mai-Ma’asina Green Belt

“MMGB is excited to partner and explore innovative electrification opportunities with our communities in building a better, greener future” Edgar Pollard | Coordinator, Mai-Ma’asina Green Belt

This partnership was selected through the Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific (AIFFP) Call for Partnerships to Support Off-Grid Renewable Energy in the Pacific and Timor-Leste.