Tonga Power Ltd. expects to invest around $45 million pa'anga over the next fiscal year (2024-25) on upgrading its power generation, the company announced on Friday.

At a media briefing on 3 May, TPL's Chairman of Board of Directors Tapu Panuve; Acting CEO, Finau Moa; and Business Development & Major Projects Manager, Andrew Kautoke, announced new strategic plans to improve electricity services and provide more affordable electricity prices.

They said that most of the challenges are due to historical issues of poor power generation asset placement priority planning, which has resulted in this year, 80% of TPL’ s 23 electricity diesel genset fleet Tongatapu and outer islands exceeding its asset life.

"This also comes with unexpected performance issues coupled with the technological challenges of new power generation technologies integrated into our power generation system, which has resulted in contributing to our power outages."

To resolve these issues, TPL has committed significant resources to upgrade its power generation; Network distribution infrastructure. Approximately $45 million pa'anga has been allocated for the next fiscal year (FY24/25) budget.

In the current fiscal year (FY23/24), the company has invested a total of $7 million pa'nga for improvements to power generation and network distribution infrastructure.

A 15.3 million TOP investment has been allocated for power generation.

Additionally, safety aspects of power generation facilities will be improved to mitigate potential risks, which includes replacing aging gensets with three new 2MW units, assistance from the Government of Australia.

The $28.4 million pa'anga investment in network distribution operations includes strengthening the grid and upgrading the Nuku’alofa network also with support from the government of Australia.

"This will increase resilience, reliability, and new connections in areas like Anana, Houmakelikao, Touliki, Popua, and Patangata. Funds will also expand the network to accommodate new customers, enhance infrastructure to reduce outages, upgrade facilities for asset storage, and replace aging fleet vehicles."

The $1.3 million pa'anga investment in electricity retail and IT technology operations aimed to enhance resilience and risk mitigation strategies. This included integrating a Meter Data Management System into the Billing System to improve billing management and establishing a Data Centre Recovery Site to protect important customer data in case of a natural disaster.

Electricity costs

Tapu Panuve noted that they were leaning towards clean energy. "For affordable electricity, we are looking towards using renewable energy to reduce the costs in electricity."

Tonga is currently using 27 - 28% of renewable energy as a source of power, which contributes a 10 seniti reduction on electricity bills, they said.