Energy Fiji Limited, the state-owned national electricity utility, says the availability of land and the current electricity tariff — not engineering capacity — are the two biggest obstacles to building large-scale solar farms in Fiji. Chief Executive Officer Fatiaki Gibson set out both problems while presenting EFL’s 2025 Annual Report to Parliament’s Standing Committee on Economic Affairs, in remarks reported by FBC News on September 26.
The hearing was a scheduled accountability session on a company report, not a project launch. What Gibson gave MPs were signed intentions, targets and site constraints rather than plant under construction.
How we sourced this: this account rests on FBC News’s report of the committee session. EFL’s full 2025 Annual Report and the committee’s own record of the hearing were not available to Fiji News at the time of writing. Fiji News has sought comment from EFL, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, and will update this report with any response.
What Gibson told MPs
- Two Memorandums of Understanding have already been signed, with the projects potentially delivering more than 100 megawatts of solar power, Gibson said.
- Those projects face commercial and technical due diligence over about the next six months before the parties work towards power purchase agreements.
- The 60 acres EFL secured at Seaqaqa can support only about 10 megawatts of solar, along with battery storage, he told the committee.
- Some independent power producers have now secured larger parcels near Yaqara, at Ba, and between Ba and Lautoka.
- Under the current tariff, EFL must absorb the costs of transmission, sub-transmission and distribution, according to Gibson.
- EFL is aiming for 60 percent renewable energy by 2029, and Gibson said the two projects already under MOU could be a game changer for the company in reaching that target.
Land: why 60 acres buys about 10 megawatts
Utility-scale solar is a land-hungry technology, and Gibson said finding suitable sites has been the harder half of the problem. He used Seaqaqa on Vanua Levu as the illustration: the 60 acres EFL holds there translates into roughly 10 megawatts of generation once battery storage is fitted into the same footprint. That works out at about six acres per megawatt on EFL’s own numbers — a ratio that, applied to the 100-megawatt-plus pipeline Gibson described, implies land requirements an order of magnitude larger than the Seaqaqa block.
For a company chasing 60 percent renewable supply by 2029, a site of that size is therefore a useful addition rather than a step change. Battery storage is part of the reason the footprint is so tight: containers, inverters, access tracks and setbacks all compete with panels for the same acreage, and storage is what allows a solar farm to deliver into the evening peak rather than only in the middle of the day.
That arithmetic is why the bigger blocks assembled by private developers matter to the utility’s plans. Gibson named the areas around Yaqara and Ba, and the corridor between Ba and Lautoka, as places where independent power producers have secured larger parcels than EFL itself has been able to — a reversal of the usual assumption that the national utility is best placed to build at scale. It also explains why one of EFL’s three sourcing streams exists specifically to handle proposals that arrive from developers who already control the ground. Gibson did not put a figure on how much additional land EFL is seeking.
The tariff squeeze
The second hurdle Gibson described is commercial rather than physical. Because EFL carries the cost of transmission, sub-transmission and distribution under the current tariff, he said the utility needs to buy solar power at a rate that still leaves enough room to cover those network costs while keeping the company financially sustainable.
In practice that sets a ceiling on the price EFL can agree in a power purchase agreement — the long-term, fixed-price contract to buy a project’s output that turns a signed MOU into something a developer’s bank will lend against. If the affordable ceiling sits below the price a developer needs to finance construction, the project stalls at the MOU stage regardless of how much land is available. That is why Gibson’s two constraints are linked rather than separate: land determines whether a project can be built, the tariff determines whether it can be bought.
No numbers were attached to any of this at the hearing. FBC News reported no current tariff rate, no target purchase price and no proposed change. Nor is the decision EFL’s to make alone: electricity tariffs in Fiji are regulated, with that function sitting with the Fijian Competition and Consumer Commission rather than the utility, so any movement in the headroom Gibson described would run through a regulatory process external to EFL’s project timetable.
Three sourcing streams, four delivery lanes
Gibson described two different organising schemes, and it is worth separating them because they answer different questions: where projects come from, and how they are run once they exist.
Stream one to three: where the projects come from
Gibson said EFL has divided its solar development program into three streams:
- EFL-led projects, which he said include potential joint ventures with the Fiji National Provident Fund.
- Unsolicited proposals from independent power producers that have already secured large parcels of land — the stream that captures the Yaqara, Ba and Ba-to-Lautoka holdings.
- Development-bank projects, being developed with support from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.
He said EFL has identified land parcels under each stream and has engaged the two lenders for screening, pre-feasibility and full feasibility work — the three escalating study stages that normally precede a bankable project. Both institutions publish Pacific and Fiji country programmes covering energy and infrastructure, but neither was reported as commenting on the specific projects Gibson outlined.
Four lanes: how the work is managed
The second scheme is internal. Gibson told the committee EFL has restructured delivery into four lanes, separating solar from hydro and from transmission, with the National Control Centre upgrade treated as its own priority. He also said the company has completed a financial policy review, and offered EFL’s chief financial officer to give MPs detail on it if the committee wanted it.
So the three streams and the four lanes are not rival versions of the same plan: one is a pipeline, the other is an internal delivery structure. A single project can sit in one stream and be executed through one lane.
Why the control centre gets its own lane
The upgrade is needed because heavier solar penetration could affect grid stability. Gibson told the committee that “most importantly the National Control Centre has to be upgraded because solar is like a variable renewable energy,” in the words FBC News quoted. The centre is where supply and demand are balanced across EFL’s network in real time; variability — output that swings with cloud cover and the daily solar curve — makes that job harder as solar’s share grows. It is also the reason EFL is keeping solar in a separate workstream from its steadier hydro generation and from transmission, rather than running everything as one program.
What is not settled yet
On the evidence reported from the hearing, none of the 100-megawatt-plus figure is contracted: the two projects carry MOUs, face about six months of commercial and technical due diligence, and would only then move towards power purchase agreements. The tariff constraint was described rather than resolved, with no rate, ceiling or reform proposal reported. The private developers holding land in the west were neither named nor heard from, no agreement with the Fiji National Provident Fund was announced, and the two development banks did not comment on the specific projects. Any one of those gaps could shift the timetable Gibson gave MPs.
The wider context
The push lands in a noisy policy environment. Development-partner money for Fiji’s energy and climate work has been a recurring theme in Suva, including China’s pledge to keep backing Fiji on climate resilience without naming a dollar figure. Emissions politics remains live, including a row over fossil-fuel advertising at Fiji’s airports, while the government points to a record $3.9 billion in foreign reserves in its account of the economy — all previously covered by Fiji News.
For households and businesses, two markers from Gibson’s evidence are concrete enough to track: whether the due diligence window closes with signed power purchase agreements rather than extended MOUs, and whether the tariff headroom he put in front of MPs is addressed before those contracts are negotiated. On his own account, the 2029 target leans on both.
Frequently Asked Questions
What has Energy Fiji Limited actually signed for solar so far?
Two Memorandums of Understanding, which Gibson said cover projects that could together deliver more than 100 megawatts, according to FBC News. An MOU is not a contract: Gibson told the committee the projects still face commercial and technical due diligence over about the next six months, after which the parties would work towards power purchase agreements. No PPA has been signed, and in FBC’s account the developers behind the two MOUs were not named at the hearing.
How much land does a megawatt of solar need in Fiji?
On EFL’s own figures, about six acres per megawatt at Seaqaqa. Gibson told MPs the 60 acres EFL secured there can support roughly 10 megawatts of solar together with battery storage in the same footprint — arithmetic that explains why a 100-megawatt-plus pipeline depends on much larger parcels than the utility currently holds. Gibson did not say how much additional land EFL is seeking.
Who sets electricity tariffs in Fiji, and did Gibson name a figure?
No figure was reported. Gibson said that under the current tariff EFL absorbs the costs of transmission, sub-transmission and distribution, which limits the price it can afford to pay a solar developer under a power purchase agreement. Tariffs are regulated rather than set by the utility on its own — in Fiji that function sits with the Fijian Competition and Consumer Commission — and FBC News reported no current rate, no target purchase price and no proposed change at the hearing.
What is the difference between EFL’s three solar streams and its four delivery lanes?
They are two separate organising schemes, not competing versions of the same plan. The three streams describe where projects come from: EFL-led projects, unsolicited proposals from independent power producers that already hold large land parcels, and projects developed with Asian Development Bank and World Bank support. The four lanes describe how EFL manages delivery internally once a project exists, splitting solar, hydro and transmission work and treating the National Control Centre upgrade as its own priority. Both descriptions come from Gibson’s evidence as reported by FBC News.
Why does adding solar mean upgrading the National Control Centre?
Because solar output rises and falls with the weather and the time of day, which affects grid stability. Gibson told MPs that “most importantly the National Control Centre has to be upgraded because solar is like a variable renewable energy,” in the words FBC News quoted. The centre is the room that balances supply and demand across EFL’s network in real time, and Gibson listed its upgrade as a standalone priority in the company’s delivery structure.
