The Sunergise 6 MW IPP Solar Generation Systems 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
Kolovai,
Tongatapu
Tongatapu is the main island of Tonga and the site of its capital, Nukuʻalofa, Nukualofa. It is located in Tonga's southern island group, to which it gives its name, and is the country's most populous island, with 74,611 residents (2016), 70.5% o ...
,
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 is the largest photovoltaic power plant in South Pacific.
History
The
power purchase agreement between Sunergise New Zealand and Tonga Power Limited with the support of
Asian Development Bank
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional development bank to promote social and economic development in Asia. The bank is headquartered in Metro Manila, Philippines and maintains 31 field offices around the world.
The bank was establishe ...
was signed on 21 March 2019. The power plant was commissioned by
King
King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...
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 ...
on 7 December 2022, in a ceremony also attended by
Prime Minister
A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...
Siaosi Sovaleni
Siaosi ‘Ofakivahafolau Sovaleni (born 28 February 1970), styled Hon. Hu‘akavameiliku, is a Tongan politician who served as the prime minister of Tonga from 2021 until his resignation in 2024. He had previously served as a cabinet minister, a ...
.
Technical specifications
The power plant has an installed capacity of 6.9 MWp, making it the largest photovoltaic power plant in south
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...
. It consists of three interconnected 2.3 MWp ground-mounted solar arrays.
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
2022 establishments in Tonga
Energy infrastructure completed in 2022
Photovoltaic power stations in Tonga
Tongatapu
{{Tonga-stub