Adoption of Climate-Smart Technologies: The Case of Rural Solar Electricity in the Pacific Islands

The small island developing states of the Pacific suffer from both the high cost of fossil fuel imports and from numerous climate-related disasters. Apart from traditional wood-fuelled cooking, the only substantial uses of RE in the Pacific currently are hydropower in some of the hillier island countries and household photovoltaic systems in rural areas and outer islands. In several Pacific Island countries hundreds of such PV systems have already been installed on individual houses, and more are on the way. Almost all are rated at 100 W or less and are used mainly for lighting but with some battery charging for telecommunications, portable lamps, radios, etc. The main issues for the sustainability of these systems are not so much technical but financial and institutional. The paper reviews these issues as they apply in the Pacific Islands and some of the ways that have been used to address them.