Vanuatu's power company Unelco, is poised to begin planting the oil-rich jatropha in a bid to increase its use of biofuels.
Philippe Baudez, who is responsible for renewable energy for Socometra, a sister company of Unelco, says it's already using copra as a biofuel but if jatropha can be grown commercially it will be able to increase biofuel use to 30 percent.
Jatropha grows wild in Vanuatu and Mr Baudez says the plan is to cultivate it on disused land such as road verges.
He says a trial planting covering point four of a hectare will be sown in the next couple of months and harvested 18 months later.
"Really the idea is not to use petrol because you can understand easily that using petrol is very difficult because the price of petrol can change easily so the price of electricity in Vanuatu has to follow and also because the country will have to buy petrol from other countries"
Philippe Baudez of Socometra in Vanuatu.
