The Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency (REEEP) today signed an agreement with the Honourable Lord Ma’afu, Tonga’s Minister of Lands, Survey, Natural Resources, Energy, Environment and Climate Change, to provide funds that will be instrumental in enabling the Tonga Energy Roadmap to be developed according to plan.
Lord Ma’afu and REEEP's DG Martin Hiller shake hands following the signing ceremony at World Future Energy on 17th January.
The Tonga Energy Roadmap (TERM) is an ambitious ten-year plan which aims to decrease the country’s dependence on expensive imported fossil fuels, to increase energy efficiency, and to provide a significant share of the country’s energy needs from renewable sources. Taken together, these measures will represent a dramatic restructuring of Tonga’s energy sector.
This REEEP funding will lay the actual foundations for the rollout of the TERM, enabling the drafting of the legislative framework, and the making of specific recommendations on how institutions should be structured or adapted to realise the plan. The signing ceremony took place at the 2012 World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi.
“The provision of technical assistance for the legislative review is fundamental to the energy sector reform for the Kingdom of Tonga,” said Lord Ma’afu, the Hon. Minister of Lands, Natural Resources, Environment and Climate, “and this project confirms REEEP’s status as a valuable development partner, reaffirming its commitment to helping Tonga towards a clean energy future.”
Martin Hiller, the Director General of REEEP noted that “we are really pleased to be taking such a strategic role in enabling the planning for Tonga’s energy future. We’re particularly interested because the Tonga Energy Roadmap could also become a blueprint for other Pacific Island states that are grappling with similar challenges.”
