In I retired and was looking for something to do, when I came across this advertisement for a two-year assignment as a renewable energy advisor in Fiji with VSA. I went through the recruitment process and got that position, but that was just before Covid, so it was converted to an e-volunteering assignment for a year.
I headed over to look at bioenergy in the Pacific. I had an idea of doing lots more countries but in the end, I only got to see two: Fiji and Samoa. I was overseas for six months. My particular project was part of a much bigger project SPC was responsible for, looking at energy security in the Pacific. My project was about bioenergy, which involves taking biomass of one sort or another and trying to work out how much is available for energy and how it might be used.
I went to Fiji and Samoa to have a look at their existing bioenergy projects and get some ideas for new opportunities, then wrote up my findings in a pair of reports. In Fiji, I spent most of my time working in an office in Suva. But the most interesting thing I got to do was tour round both Viti Levu and Vanua Levu and see lots of sites, including Nabou Green Energy, which takes in wood and produces electricity from it, Lautoka Sugar Mill, and Tropik Wood Sawmill, which also generate electricity from sugar cane bagasse and wood residue respectively.
I also travelled around Samoa, seeing similar sites. In both places, I found that while some things were going well, there were also lots of challenges. For example, some of the places we visited had difficulty getting feedstock.
In Samoa, for instance, we visited Afolau Gasification Plant, which was in a coconut plantation that had become overgrown. That was a huge amount of labour to prepare β 50 tons a day of wood for gasification. Overall, it was a really interesting experience because I went with two Fijians, which gave me a kind of access I might not ordinarily have had.
