A study
Power on the island
The hotel would make its own electricity, on the resort land. Energy Fiji Limited's grid does not reach Batiki. An engineer still has to size the plant. Nothing on this page is built.
Outer-island resorts in Fiji already run this way. On the Yasawas, Paradise Cove, Blue Lagoon, and Octopus use solar and batteries for the daily work, and keep diesel generators as backup. Across those three resorts the solar is about 760 kilowatts. Batiki would use the same kind of system, sized for this hotel's 80 rooms.
- Day
- Ground-mounted solar, out of the guest view, tilted low so a cyclone has less to catch. While the sun is strong it runs the hotel, charges the batteries, and runs the desalination pumps. Laundry runs in those same hours.
- Night
- The batteries run the rooms. The fresh water already in the tanks is the store from the sunny hours, so the desalination pumps can stay off.
- Grey days
- Two diesel generator sets in the power house. They start when the batteries are low, or when the sky has stayed grey. One can be serviced while the other is ready. Fuel still comes by barge, so the generators are the reserve, and the sun does the ordinary day.
- Rooms
- Inverter air conditioning. The hotel has one pool. When a room is empty the cooling eases off. If a balcony door stays open, the cooling stops, so the night load stays inside what the batteries can carry.
- The house
- A solid building, kept cool, with the batteries and the generators inside. Spare parts stay on the island. A barge is not a same-day shop.
- The size
- An engineer sets the kilowatts after the drawings, for 80 rooms plus the kitchen, the laundry, and the desalination plant. This page does not.
- Approval
- A plant like this needs Fiji's approval to generate, and a licensed Fiji electrician to install it. The lease and the drawings go with that application.