A consultant conducting an energy assessment of American Samoa says there is significant opportunity for the territory to reduce its vulnerability to a disruption in energy supply through the more efficient use of energy in all forms.
David Schaller, of Westmoreland Associates in Arizona, has been doing work in the territory for the past 30 years and suggests American Samoa boost the amount of energy it has on stand-by as current surplus requirements are not robust enough.
"The recommendations are that we think serously about creating on-island additional reserves so that we have more than just a 10 or a 15 day supply of fuel. You know, if we kept that at a higher capacity we could maybe withstand the effects of an outage for a couple of weeks."
Energy consultant David Schaller.
