PCREEE Empowering the Private Sector in the Solomon Islands

2 May 2018 Honiara, Solomon Islands – Close to 100 people gathered at the Landmark Plaza at Honiara yesterday for a three day training workshop on sustainable energy entrepreneurship conducted by the Pacific Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (PCREEE).

In opening the training, the Under-Secretary for Administration of the Ministry of Mines, Energy and Rural Electrification (Mr Daniel Beto Rove) made reference to the Solomon Islands being among the Pacific Islands countries with the lowest percentage of its population having access to electricity and among those with the highest power tariff in the region. Yet, Solomon Islands have rich renewable energy potentials, youths that are looking for skills and jobs and local people, banks and a private sector who are looking for investment opportunities.

“The government has made firm commitments and adopted energy targets in its Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement. The private sector has a key role to play on this and I am just thankful to the PCREEE for assisting us to speed up the implementation. The Paris Agreement calls for ambitious and urgent actions and am glad that the Solomon Islands is playing its part,” said the Under-Secretary.    

The objectives of the training over the next three days are basically to:

1. promote entrepreneurship and private sector investment and job creation in sustainable energy;
2. enhancing opportunities for private sector collaboration; and
3. raising the awareness about the business opportunities in the Solomon Islands energy sector.

“I do hope that at the conclusion of the workshop, we can be confident that we have moved up another notch in terms of effecting important changes to the energy landscape and particularly to the people and the private sector in the Solomon Islands. We are already overwhelmed with the interest in the training. We were aiming for 40, but we got close to 200 applications and we have to trim it down to 100,” said Peceli Nakavulevu, Private Sector Expert at the PCREEE. 

This training workshop is convened right after the Forum Economic Ministers Meeting (FEMM) at Palau last week. The FEMM recognised that the private sector will be an important vehicle for supporting investment in renewable energy, in particular, local investments; and shared a vision with the private sector for the region becoming 100% reliant on self-generated renewable energies.

The PCREEE is a Nuku’alofa-based specialised centre of excellence to empower the private sector and the business community to lead in accelerating the region’s progress on renewable energy and energy efficiency. It is coordinated by the Pacific Community in collaboration with its sister regional organisations (Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Pacific Power Association, Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme and the University of the South Pacific). 

Media contacts

Solomone Fifita Manager PCREEE, solomonef@spc.int or +676 7750480

Atishma Lal SPC Project Information Assistant, atishmal@spc.int or +679 3379402

Photo Captions

Group Photo

Daniele Beto Rove - the Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Mines, Energy and Rural Electrification opening the training workshop pictured below on the left

David Iro of Willies Electrical presenting to the workshop pictured below to the right