Editor,

By chance I see it reported in the media this week that Tonga Power will spend 16 million dollars replacing rotten and leaning power poles in a network upgrading programme commencing from the "city". From where I sit, we will have spent these millions only to find that we will remain vulnerable to falling branches as well as hurricane borne damage and still wedded to non-renewable imported and expensive diesel, the price of which is expected to return to stratospheric levels once the world takes the crunch out of credit. In short, not a great deal better

It wasn't that long ago that we railed and wailed against Shoreline's high electricity charges ...– and I now ask whether we learnt anything at all from it.

Here's what I'd do with this $16 million outlay. I would have started at the outer fringe of the network and work may way back into town. I would provide a subsidy to all these fringe villages to become self-sufficient with renewable solar and wind turbine technology and take them off the grid forever. In return these subscribers can put their new power cables underground to make them hurricane proof as well. Then allow attrition and a far-sighted energy policy to dictate the pace at which we will convert each village over from non-renewable to clean, cheap and renewable.

These fringe subscribers will be a test-bed for where we will be in the future while at the same time, we have commenced the inevitable move away from diesel on a national scale.

By 2012 when oil will be back to US$100+ dollars per barrel, there is no question that our options will include another one that we had never had before: electricity at prices that we never thought possible.

Unlike most countries, Tonga's consumption pattern is uniquely different in that most of the electricity is consumed by households and not industry. We are therefore in a favourable position to usher in these changes easily and the benefits will be immediate.

Now that power is literally in our hands, why not move to make work for, rather than against us?

Sefita Hao'uli

sefita [dot] haouli [at] gmail [dot] com