There was some good news that came from the power company this week. The Electric Power Corporation has sold two major solar farms for more than $7 million and secured a low-cost power purchase agreement from the companies.

Green Power won the bid for the Tuanaimato farm with a power purchasing agreement (PPA) of $0.44. The Faleolo farm is being sold to E Energy Group and has signed a P.P.A. with the corporation of $0.42.

The two farms were purchased by E.P.C. in August last year from Solar for Samoa for US$2.1 million equivalent to SAT$5.8 million.

The corporation bought the solar farm so that it could break away from the Independent Power Producer (I.P.P.) contract with the then contractor which led to losses. 

Part of the deal that E.P.C. had put out in its expression of interest to sell the farms is a threshold of no more than $0.52 to purchase electricity from the new owners.

E.P.C. bought electricity from the then company for $0.59 and resold it at a lesser price of $0.52 without making any profit. It is still hard to understand why the EPC is unable to operate the solar farms on its own. Perhaps instead of thinking of a bigger grid, they could have solar farms power 100 houses only and remain sustainable.

Whoever was responsible for entering into the agreement where EPC was making losses from renewable energy needs to be taken to task. If the government will go down that road, that is another question.

There is a deep concern regarding the power company. There has been assurance that the finances of the power company are in order. This seems contradictory to the statement that the EPC needs time to pay off the $600,000 it owes to the Office of the Regulator for license fees.

If there is the money and there are no cash flow issues, the fee owed from 2022 should have already been paid. It is common knowledge that the decision to give a 20 per cent discount on the electricity rate has cost EPC.

The power company, although a service provider, needs to be able to make a profit if it needs to stay in operation. The discount did not allow that to happen. The EPC made losses that were equal to $60 million per year.

To remedy the situation, the government through the Office of the Regulator announced two revocations of the discount, one for the government and one for commercial companies.

There was also an announcement of a new cost per unit. This was almost double what was previously being charged. Commercial companies since November have been paying as much as 60 per cent more than what they were doing previously.

It seems there has been not much thought given to the energy sector. There is so much talk about renewable energy and having the nation switch to green energy by 2030, but right now, it does not seem that it will happen.

There have also been instances when the power supply seems to fluctuate. While the EPC says this is because of overloading, there is a clear sign that there needs to be investment done in the aging infrastructure.,

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