Seychelles solar school project wins Greening the Islands Award 2020 under energy category |15 December 2020

Grand Anse Primary School, Praslin

The Seychelles Energy Commission (Sec) was presented with the Greening the Islands (GTI) Award, under Energy Category, for the Solar School Project, acknowledging it as one of the best practices to accelerate sustainability and self-sufficiency of islands.

This was announced during the GTI e-Convention, which took place from November 24-27, 2020.

The GTI e-Convention was a global event dedicated to the innovative solutions for the self-sufficiency and sustainability of islands in six categories: Water, Energy, Waste, Mobility, Agriculture and Tourism. The event, which was attended by Sec’s principal officer for renewable energy, Cynthia Alexander, was digital and included the seventh edition of their international conference, where different island nations all around the world connected with governments, corporates and academia to share their common experiences through the digital platform to match needs of an island with innovative solutions.

GTI selected their best innovative projects of islands on circular economies and sustainable tourism, chaired by a prestigious international jury, with an evaluation based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria, like CO2 savings, the ecological and economic value added, replicability to other areas and degree of innovation.

Among the many projects being implemented by the Sec, the Solar School Project was submitted because of its sustainability, impact and replicability to other island states. The project is to undertake installation of PV systems of capacity between 4kWp to 5kWp (or according to the school’s demand and capacity to integrate to the grid) on all the public schools located on the three main islands of Seychelles (Mahé, Praslin and La Digue) which altogether makes a total of 32 schools. This project is being implemented/facilitated by the Sec in close collaboration with PUC and the Ministry of Agriculture, Climate Change and Environment, Ministry of Education and their Eco-School department, Ministry of Finance and that of Land Use and Habitat along with sponsors wherever applicable.

One of the functions of the Sec is to promote the adoption of renewable energy and this is currently being done through distributed,rooftop, grid-connected PV systems. By involving schools, we are also aiming for public outreach, with the teachers and students creating more awareness on PV technology.

The list of schools along with their capacity and donors are given in the accompanying table.

The project also focuses on implementation of various energy efficiency measures such as insulation, efficient glazing, retrofitting of computer and other air-conditioned rooms to minimise energy use, use of efficient lighting (LED) in classroom and for security lights.

According to the Sec, this award means a lot to the commission and the country as a whole. “Our efforts and hard work in adopting renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies have been recognised,” said Tony Imaduwa, CEO of the Sec. “Over the years we have made significant steps…maybe not as fast as some would have liked but we are moving in the right direction despite all the challenges.”

It should be noted that the country has in the pipeline approximately close to 12 MW of solar PV projects to come online soon and these alone will represent close to 5% of our annual energy consumption.  

In conclusion, the Sec would like to thank all their stakeholders who have been supporting throughout the implementation of these projects and we look forward to getting all the schools become solar school.

http://www.greeningtheislands.net/index.php/e_convention-awards/

The accompanying photos show some of the solar schools.

Contributed by Sec