The Department of Energy (DoE) through the Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC) is the leading Government agency responsible for the development of energy policies, legislations and regulations to guide the development of energy services in Vanuatu and improve service delivery. Its principal policy, the National Energy Road Map (NERM) 2016-2030 stipulates that by 2030, Vanuatu should move out from conventional energy sources and transition to more renewable and sustainable energy sources. Similarly, Pillar 2 of the People’s Plan ECO 2.1 states that there should be increase in renewable energy sources to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels.
The Department of Energy is also the Administrator of the Electricity Supply Act [CAP 65] (as amended), which provides under section 4 (3)(a) the rights of a person within a concession area to generate electricity exclusively for his or her own use in that person’s dwelling house, business or other facility, vehicle or vessel within any concession area. This means that any person who has an existing electricity customer agreement with an electricity concessionaire is eligible to also generate electricity for his or her own use.
While electricity customers are granted such rights under the Electricity Supply Act, for the purposes of safety and stability of the entire electricity network, the Department of Energy highly recommends that any person who intends to or has installed a rooftop solar for self-generation purposes must ensure that his or her system must not supply power back into the electricity grids. The relevant concessionaire should be informed if the installed rooftop solar facility is resending power to the grid.
The Department of Energy is currently working on a daft Regulation on self-generation and will undertake consultations on the same with the general public, mainly customers of electricity and the relevant concessionaires and the Utilities Regulatory Authority (URA) before the Regulation can be finalized and enforced, once the necessary changes in the Electricity Supply Act [CAP 65] have been incorporated and approved accordingly.
For further information concerning this press release, please do contact the Department of Energy on +678 33425/+678 25201 or email