The Maama Mai Solar Farm is a
photovoltaic power plant
A photovoltaic power station, also known as a solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system (PV system) designed for the supply of merchant power. They are different from most building ...
in
Nukuʻalofa
Nukualofa ( , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Tonga. It is located on the north coast of the island of Tongatapu, in the country's southernmost island group.
History
First western records of Nukualofa
On 10 June 1777, British ...
,
Tonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in the southern Pacific Ocean. accordin ...
. It was the first renewable power plant in the country. The plant has an output of 1.325MW and produces 1,880 MWh of electricity per annum.
The plant's name is
Tongan for "let there be light".
[
]
History
Funding for the plant was announced by New Zealand foreign affairs minister Murray McCully
Murray Stuart McCully (born 19 February 1953) is a New Zealand former politician. He is a member of the National Party, and served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2008 to 2017.
Early life
Born in Whangārei, McCully was educated at Arap ...
in July 2010.Meridian Energy
Meridian Energy Limited is a New Zealand electricity generator and retailer. The company generates the largest proportion of New Zealand's electricity, generating 35 percent of the country's electricity in the year ending December 2014, and i ...
, with the electricity sold to Tonga Power.[ Funding of NZ$7.9 million was provided by the ]New Zealand Agency for International Development
The New Zealand Aid Programme is the New Zealand Government's international aid and development agency. The New Zealand Aid Programme is managed by the Pacific and Development Group in the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT ...
.
Construction of the power plant started in 2011 and completed in 2012. It was then commissioned by King Tupou VI
Tupou VI (ʻAho‘eitu ʻUnuakiʻotonga Tukuʻaho; born 12 July 1959) is King of Tonga.
The youngest child of King Tāufaʻāhau Tupou IV, he served as Prime Minister of Tonga from 2000 to 2006. Following his elder brother's accession to the ...
in July 2012, making it the first renewable
A renewable resource (also known as a flow resource) is a natural resource which will replenish to replace the portion depleted by usage and consumption, either through natural reproduction or other recurring processes in a finite amount of ti ...
power plant in the country.
See also
* Economy of Tonga
Tonga's economy is characterized by a large nonmonetary sector and a heavy dependence on remittances from the half of the country's population that lives abroad, chiefly in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Much of the monetary sec ...
References
2012 establishments in Tonga
Buildings and structures in Nukuʻalofa
Energy infrastructure completed in 2012
Photovoltaic power stations in Tonga
{{Tonga-stub