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Beqa Yanuca Secondary School  (2601 Suva)

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About

Beqa Yanuca Secondary School, on Beqa Island, off the South West coast of Fiji's main island, in 2023 has 15 teachers providing classes for 110 students from years 9 to 13. 22 students from outer locations board during the week in 2 hostels.

The school has 5.5 KVA (very loud) generator that supplies day time power for periods on a needs basis and occasionally night power. The school has a very small solar system, powering a couple of rooms, but the lead acid batteries failed long ago, so it only provides some power when the sun is shining (certainly not adequate to power a school). Teachers' homes have their own small generators. Most of the school, the hostels and teachers' homes was newly wired when the solar was installed.

A donor also supplied a new LED data projector and 20 kgs of library books focused on sustainability.

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:
Comments and other bulidings:
Date entered:
Project Funding

Donor is anonymous.

Our school commits to have a group of students spend at least 15 minutes, most weeks, picking up plastics. So, we keep our small patch on the earth as free of plastic as possible - its a small action we do to protect marine and other wildlife. We hope all schools in the world join us in doing the same.

For sustainability

Our projects

Plastic Pick up Activity

Started: 2023 Status: Ongoing
One or more of our team spends at least 15 minutes each week (or at least one hour each month) picking up plastics in our area. So, we keep our small part of the earth as free of plastic as possible - it's a small action we do to protect marine and other wildlife. We hope all businesses and organisations in the world will join us in doing the same.

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Carbon Dioxide and Financial Savings
Document

Beqa Yanuca Secondary School

Annual school fuel saving (litres) (1)

1,100

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

200

Annual cartage saving (litres) (3)

165

Total annual fuel saving (litres) (4)

1,520

Fuel saving over 30 years (litres)

45,600

Annual CO2 saving (kgs)

3,876

CO2 saving over 30 years (kgs)

116,280

Annual AUD saving (8)

$ 4,140

Annual USD saving

$ 2,815

Annual FJD saving

$ 6,210

30 yrs AUD saving

$ 124,200

30 yrs USD saving

$ 82,200

30 yrs FJD saving

$ 181,350

Total of All It's Time Solar Schools

Total annual school fuel saving (litres)

20,540

Total annual fuel saving 91 teachers' homes getting solar (litres)

4,150

Total annual cartage saving (litres)

3,081

Total annual fuel saving (litres) (4)

27,886

Total fuel saving over 30 years (litres)

836,580

Total annual CO2 saving (kgs)

71,103

Total CO2 saving over 30 years (kgs)

2,133,277

Total annual AUD saving (8)

$ 78,672

Total annual USD saving

$ 53,489

Total annual FJD saving

$ 118,008

Total 30 yrs AUD saving

$ 2,360,160

Total 30 yrs USD saving

$ 1,578,540

Total 30 yrs FJD saving

$ 3,482,640

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
05 June 2023

DC Coupled

Inverters

Inverter type

Victron MultiPlus-II/5000

Charge controller

Victron MPPT 250/85

Panels

Panel type

Jinko Tiger 415

Number of panels

15

Array (watts)

6225

Mountings

Mountings

Ground mounted

Brand

Clenergy Solar Terrace II

Batteries

Battery type

Simpliphi PHI 3.8 Lithium Ferro Phosphate

Number of batteries

6

Kilowatt hours

22.8

Batteries mounted

Simpliphi Boss 6 Cabinet


General electrical works

The classrooms, office and library/computer areas either had unssafe or no wiring, so all were upgraded with new wiring. An approximate 600m new circuit now connects the school solar system to 4 teachers’ homes, 2 hostels, dining room and ablution blocks - these building are relatively distant from each other, hence the significant size of the circuit and major digging works required. All those buildings were wired for new LED lighting and power sockets.

4 amp breakers are installed into the teachers' homes - this limits appliances to less than 1000 watts (so no electric cook tops etc., but capacity to use modest sized electrical appliances). That power limiting strategy means effective use of a reasonably sized school solar system and all in the community are very happy to have this level of 24-hour power supply.


Partners

Solar contractor

CBS Power Solutions

General electric works constractor

CBS Power Solutions



Contacts
Document

Enter all contacts e.g School Manager, Head Teacher, Principal. The more the better.
If a contact changes, for example the principal, edit the old record to show the new person’s details.

New First Name Last Name Position Phone Email FB Note Edited
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