Some good news following the heavy rain over the past few weeks as the Fiji Electricity Authority has announced that the Monasavu Dam level has had an increase of 4 to 5 metres.
However FEA Chief Executive Officer, Hasmukh Patel requests all consumers to continue to conserve energy.
With people celebrating Diwali tomorrow, Patel said traditionally people used a lot of diyas and candles in the Festival of Lights and he hopes this will be the case tomorrow rather than excessive lighting using FEA power.
Patel said FEA had to conserve water in the last 3 to 4 months by reducing the power generation mix to 30 percent hydro and 70 percent from thermal.
He revealed that the conservation of water and increased thermal generation has cost the Authority over 115 million dollars till the end of October while FEA had budgeted 69 million dollars for the whole year.
Patel said they just had to bite the bullet and do it as the dam would have dried up if the action was not taken.
Patel said the increased unbudgeted expenditure for fuel has forced FEA to further tighten its operations and reduce costs where possible in addition to the deferment of a number of activities to next year, which has helped to save about 5.7 million dollars over the past ten months.
Story by: Vijay Narayan
Feature
Water level increases in Dam
