The construction of a $12 million Solar Farm on Tongatapu, began with an official groundbreaking ceremony at the Popua Power Station on Thursday, 10 November.

When the Popua Solar Farm is completed and comes into full operation by July 2012, Tonga Power Ltd. expects it to generate 1,880 megawatt hours of electricity per annum, or about 4% of Tongatapu's total electricity demand.

The Solar Farm is a step toward the Tonga government's target, set in its Energy Roadmap 2010-20 to produce 50% of its electricity from renewable sources.

The Acting New Zealand High Commissioner to Tonga, Mr Dominic Walton-France, said that the New Zealand government fully supported Tonga's Energy Road Map, and it had allocated $12 million pa'anga for the construction of the Popua Solar Farm, and another $8 million pa'anga for the replacement of power lines and power poles, to improve the distribution of electricity throughout Tongatapu.

The New Zealand government had allocated $20 million pa'anga toward Tonga's Renewable Energy Roadmap because it recognized the high price of electricity in Tonga, and the importance of electricity to people's everyday lives, and commercial activities. The construction was to start immediately following the ground breaking ceremony, he said.

The Popua Solar Power will be constructed by Meridian Energy, a leading New Zealand developer in renewable energy.

Carl Sanft, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tonga Power Ltd., said that following the completion of the construction of the Popua Solar Power next July, which is fully-funded by the New Zealand government, Tonga Power will pay Meridian an annual fee of about $20,000 for the maintenance of the farm for the next five years. After that Tonga Power Ltd. takes over the running of the farm. The life span of the 5,760 photovoltaic solar panels that will be installed at the farm is 35 to 40 years. He said that a similar solar power farm is also planned for Vava'u.

The Minister for Public Enterprises, Hon. Clive Edwards, told the gathering that government was also pursuing other avenues to bring down the cost of electricity, and that by early in the new year it would announce a project on how it would cut down on the price of imported fuel.

The minister did not go into details, but government made a statement at the closure of parliament last month, that Tonga is planning to establish a tank farm, so that it could store fuel in bulk, and oil tankers could come directly from Singapore to Tonga, instead of Tonga having to get its fuel via Fiji.