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Natusara Primary School  (1327 Eastern)

About

Docs & Links

Specifications

Works & Maintenance

CO2 & $s

Contacts

Charge data

Term Reports

Procedures

About

Natusara Primary, on Ono Island south of the mainland, is quite unique in a number of ways with regard its location. Firstly, to get into the school you need a small boat to cross the mudflats that are exposed half the time, so should you arrive on the low tide you may need to wait hours to get in. Once across the mud flat the school is 300m up a mangrove creek. Secondly, the school was build roughly in the middle of the villages it was servicing, so all the children board in the hostels and there are no other immediate buildings or services other than the school.

Prior to the solar system being installed in 2014 the school rarely used their old diesel generator during the day time. It was used in the evenings between 6 and 9 to supply the teachers' homes. hostels and school. So, any work by the teachers that needed power needed to wait until the evening. Reliable 24-hour power, delivered by the solar, allows teachers to carry out their work in a more professional manner and do activities that suit their schedule rather than when a noisy generator is switched on in the evenings.

School Role & Facilities
Students:
Teachers:
Classrooms:
Kindergarten:
Offices:
Library/computer area:
Teachers homes in the school grounds:
Boarders (live-in students):
Hostels (Boarding houses):
Dining rooms:
Date entered:
Project Funding

Fiji Water Foundation


Carbon Dioxide and Financial Savings
Document

Natusara Primary School

Annual school fuel saving (litres) (1)

800

Annual fuel saving 4 teachers' homes getting solar (litres) (2)

200

Annual cartage saving (litres) (3)

120

Total annual fuel saving (litres) (4)

1,120

Fuel saving over 30 years (litres)

33,600

Annual CO2 saving (kgs)

2,856

CO2 saving over 30 years (kgs)

85,680

Annual AUD saving (8)

$ 3,340

Annual USD saving

$ 2,271

Annual FJD saving

$ 5,010

30 yrs AUD saving

$ 100,200

30 yrs USD saving

$ 68,130

30 yrs FJD saving

$ 150,300

Total of All It's Time Solar Schools

Total annual school fuel saving (litres)

21,580

Total annual fuel saving 94 teachers' homes getting solar (litres)

4,300

Total annual cartage saving (litres)

3,289

Total annual fuel saving (litres) (4)

29,169

Total fuel saving over 30 years (litres)

875,070

Total annual CO2 saving (kgs)

74,373

Total CO2 saving over 30 years (kgs)

2,231,424

Total annual AUD saving (8)

$ 82,738

Total annual USD saving

$ 56,253

Total annual FJD saving

$ 124,107

Total 30 yrs AUD saving

$ 2,482,140

Total 30 yrs USD saving

$ 1,687,590

Total 30 yrs FJD saving

$ 3,723,210

Assumptions

Fuel cost in the islands in AUD/litre (5)

2.00

Fuel cartage consideration % (3)

0.15

Annual fuel consumption per teacher's home wired (litres) (2)

50.00

Annual generator maintenance consideration AUD (6)

1500.00

CO2 produced per litre of fuel burned (kgs) (7)

2.55

AUD to USD conversion rate used

0.68

AUD to FJD conversion rate used

1.50

Notes

(1) This is the annual fuel consumption based on reporting from the school at the time of school survey and affirmed at the time of installation. It refers to direct fuel use by the school, not including teachers' homes.

(2) The fuel consumption of teachers' homes varies considerable between homes and over time. Their sources of energy varies from their own small generators to shared generators, still some use kerosene for lighting and some small solar (often failing) for lights and charging. Recently on Beqa Island two of the 7 households at one school were each using 10 litres of fuel per week and some were using very little. So, we have chosen the conservative underestimate of each household saving of 2 litres per week (approx. 5 kgs of CO2).

(3) Most schools have a cost to get fuel to the school - usually small boats and car/truck on the mainland. The costs vary from small amounts to some schools where the cartage cost is almost the same as the cost of the fuel itself. The cartage consideration (dollar and carbon cost) is a percentage of the total fuel consumption, because it varies widely from school to school we have chosen quite a conservative estimate.

(4) Includes cartage and teachers' home consumption estimate that therefore contribute to the total CO2 saving. But we do not include the teachers home in the financial saving - rather we just refer to the savings from the school generator.

(5) This is the current published diesel price in Fiji presented in AUD. Often the islands pay a higher price, but that is not factored in, so generally the price will be a small under estimation.

(6) Generators often require repairs and eventually replacement. That cost varies significantly from school to school, so a conservative value is applied to represent this component of cost/saving for all schools. It is not possible to calculate that accurately for every school, hence the estimate across all.

(7) Burning diesel produces CO2 at a rate of 2.68 kgs/litre, whereas petrol produces it at a rate of 2.31 kgs/litre. We have chosen 2.55 as the approximate for our calculations because there is more diesel used than petrol in the school generators.

(8) The fuel savings in the teachers' homes are not included in the calculation of financial savings for the school. Although teachers are asked to make a small contribution each term (FJD70) for their now 24-hour power and this goes to the school to buy more education resources.

Specifications
Document
07 July 2014

The system originally had 600Ah (48V) lead acid Powerstack batteries that gave good service to 2023 and then we installed a new Lithium bank. Also the original panels withstood three cyclones over over 8 years to 2022 when we decided to replace them with new Jinko panels.


AC Coupled

Inverters

Inverter type

SMA SI6

Grid-tie inverter

Sunny Boy 4

Panels

Panel type

Jinko 380

Number of panels

10

Array (watts)

3800

Mountings

Mountings

Roof mounted

Brand

Clenergy PV-ezRACK Solar Roof

Batteries

Battery type

Simpliphi PHI 3.8 Lithium Ferro Phosphate

Number of batteries

5

Kilowatt hours

19.5

Batteries mounted

Simpliphi Boss 6 Cabinet


General electrical works

In 2014 the teachers homes and hostels were wired into the school solar system.


Partners

Solar contractor

CBS Power Solutions

General electric works constractor

CBS Power Solutions

Contacts
Document
First Name Last Name Position Phone Email FB Note Edited
Charge data
Don't have login?
Document

This data is currently only available to the school and admin.

  Event

Works & Maintenance
Term Report