Power of coming together at PPA conference in August

CEO of TAU is upbeat about the benefits of belonging to the Pacific Power Association (PPA) whose annual conference will held in the Cook Islands in August.
Apii Timoti said the focus of the PPA is to bring the various electricity providers in the Pacific to come together as a group to share their experiences with the positives and the challenges and exchange ideas of possible solutions that may already be tried out by one or other of the members.
One of the big initiatives is the fuel issue which price is based on volume with the PPA members coming together as a group in order to create the necessary volume with the hope of being able to negotiate a better price as a cooperative. What is needed is the political commitment and the various parties are discussing the protocols of how to achieve this goal.
The CEO said storage facilities is not an issue as the fuel can be held anywhere within the group, the practical difficulties are that the countries are using different standards of fuel. For instance, TAU uses light fuel because it is cheaper and more eco-friendly, whereas other countries use the heavier fuels which have a high sulphur content and still others use a mix of the two.
Donor agencies include the European Union (EU), France and the USA with funding available for various purposes such as training but the donor agencies have a minimum eligibility requirement in order to access the assistance.
PPA members have decided to come together and ‘package’ their advanced training needs as a group in order to qualify and this has been quite successful. Training covers the whole gamut of the industry from technical, mechanical, electrical, operations, customer service, business planning and more.
For instance in 2006, eight TAU staff took part in advanced training held at the PPA head office in Fiji for training in renewable energy, following on from 2005 when 4 engineering operators and 4 technicians took part in training designed to bring them up to speed with the latest developments in technology and techniques.
Power generation is a very dynamic field with constant updates so this advanced training is absolutely essential for effectiveness and efficiency.

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