PACIFIC Fishing Company has signed a memorandum of understanding with Island Solar Fiji to move towards 100 per cent renewable energy for its Levuka operations.
For a company that has been part of Fiji’s industrial landscape for generations, the move is being framed as both a business decision and a long-term investment in survival, competitiveness and stability.
CEO Saiyad Raiyum said the initiative was about securing PAFCO’s future, reducing costs and protecting local jobs at a time when manufacturers are under increasing pressure to remain competitive.
PAFCO spends around $1.5million each year on electricity and accounts for 90 per cent of power consumption on Ovalau in eastern Fiji.
Raiyum linked the renewable push directly to the company’s position in the global tuna industry, saying that affordable, reliable energy is critical if PAFCO is to strengthen its position as a producer of loins and canned products while continuing to support employment in Levuka.
Island Solar Fiji founder and director Rob Manson argued that the current fuel crisis had sharpened the case for transition.
“The best time to install it was yesterday,” he said, but with energy costs soaring and the price of fuel “going through the roof”, now is the right time to seriously consider alternatives.
For Island Solar Fiji, the PAFCO project is not simply about installing solar panels on a factory. It is about responding to an energy system that has become more volatile and more expensive, while helping one of Ovalau’s largest electricity users chart a different path.
That broader ambition was reinforced by Island Solar Fiji managing director Eddy May, who described the project as something much bigger than a single solar installation.
Because PAFCO is one of the largest electricity users on Ovalau, he said the transition could influence how the entire island thinks about power.
With Energy Fiji Limited also part of the picture, the partnership is being positioned as a model for how private companies, utilities and local industry can work together to accelerate renewable energy in Fiji and, eventually, across the Pacific.
