St Paul’s Primary School
Location: Naviavia, Venua Levu, Fiji
Search Google maps: Naviavia, Northern Division, Fiji
At St Paul’s 5 teachers are providing classes for 99 students. 5 teachers’ quarters are on the school grounds. A dormitory houses 32 students from villages in the region.
The teachers’ quarters had no power supplied from the school. They used their own small generators using makeshift and unsafe wiring and they supplement with kerosene lanterns. The other two quarters only had kerosene lanterns. The dormitory also used kerosene lanterns.
Prior to solar the school generator ran for an average of 2 hours during or after school each day when the teachers did photocopying, charged laptops etc. Recently they had also increased night use by running multiple extension cords to the quarters (certainly a less than safe practice particularly in rainy periods). Considering fuel consumption at the time of installation the estimated annual fuel saving is approximately $3000 per year.
The school recently received 5 new desktop computers and 20 XO laptops — all available for 24 hour power in 2016.
This 3000W system installed October 2015 includes: 12 x Yingli 250 solar panels, 1 x SMA SB3000TL grid Inverter, 1 x SMA SI4.4M remote inverter, 6 x Aquion S20P batteries, 1 x Clenergy ground mounting system. Most tube lighting removed and replaced with LED globes. 4 teachers’ quarters and the dormitory had new wiring installed. The fifth quarter was unoccupied awaiting refurbishment, wiring will be included at that time. The school office was also wired.
The project was funded by the Fiji Water Foundation. The project was completed Oct. 2015.
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