Rural electrification initiatives in Fiji: a case study of solar home systems

Fiji is continuously striving towards providing its entire population with access to modern forms of energy, especially access to electricity. In 2007, 89% of the population had access to electricity, which comprising 82% of rural and 96% of urban dwellers. Although access to electricity in rural areas is significantly lower compared with urban areas but still represents a marked improvement from 69 % in 2003. The current (2014) estimates of overall national electrification rate are 92- 95% .The progress in rural electrification can mainly be attributed to a number of on-going initiatives including main grid extensions, solar home systems, diesel mini-grids and pico-hydro schemes but the solar home systems (SHS) program is the most popular and preferred option in remote rural and maritime regions. This paper describes