Bwagaoia Station on Misima Island in the Lousiades Local Level Government (LLG) of Samarai Murua District in Milne Bay Province has enjoyed electricity and power supply since last weekend.
This comes after the purchasing of a brand-new 500-kilowatt generator to help with the hydro power supply from Tageta. he once mining township will now get to enjoy uninterrupted power supply after its previous generator went off due to wear and tear causing power issues for the past year.
Samarai Murua MP Hon Isi Henry Leonard said electricity and power issues in the district was a provincial government’s responsibility however his district, in particular Bwagaoia Station on Misima Island has not received any assistance to fix the power issue.
He said through the support of his District Development Authority, the Misima Powers and Rocky Builders company’s commitment has resulted in a brand-new generator being purchased for the island township.
Mr Leonard who is also the Minister for Tourism, Art and Culture highlighted the importance of electricity within the township and its positive impact on the Misima General Hospital, Misima Secondary School and Business Houses, most of whom have been running on small power generators for the past year.
The Bwagaoia Station has been sharing its electricity power supply load between the hydro power and the generator. The hydro power gives electricity to the West side of Bwagaoia and the generator powers the Bwagaoia station when there is maintenance work to be done at the hydro.
Graham Leonard of Rocky Builders who is in charge of Misima Power said that the generator will run on a scheduled basis until the hydro is fully connected to the main grid to power the township 24 hours a day. He said there was still a lot of work to be done and would take another month to fully restore Bwagoia Station with power.
Mr Leonard indicated that the Hydro gave off 380 kilowatts and the new generator gave off 500 kilowatts of electricity supply, both sources needed to be scheduled for power to be constantly on.
He said the immediate challenge now was to pull High Voltage (HV) lines from the Hydro at Tageta to Misima Hospital which would also cost money.
Regardless, he was delighted that a new generator was now available, and work would start to help ease the power issues they were experiencing. By 2AM last Sunday morning, the new generator had been installed and power came on at Bwagaoia station.
Mr Leonard and his team will continue to monitor the progress of the new generator and ensure its effective supplying of power while working simultaneously to bring the HV lines from the hydro.
