UNELCO puts smarter home design in focus at Home Expo

July 13, 2026 11:15 pm | Posted in Business News | Share now TwitterFacebook

By Charles Hakwa.

When thousands of families walk onto the Port Vila Seafront from 16–18 July for the Port Vila Home Expo 2026, they will be greeted by the event’s central message: “Home Is More Than A Building.”

This leading home and lifestyle event is designed to bring businesses, builders, and families together to explore innovation. Yet, as the community prepares to discover new products and services, a deeper question hangs over the seafront: how do we build homes that truly protect us while remaining affordable?

In a recent exclusive interview with Daily Post, UNELCO General Manager (GM) Frederic Petit made it clear that the utility giant’s major sponsorship of this year’s expo is rooted in a profound sense of social responsibility. For UNELCO, aligning with the expo’s mission of creating stronger communities means looking far beyond corporate boundaries to address the practical economic burdens facing everyday citizens.

Before navigating the micro-dynamics of household electricity, Petit laid out the staggering macroeconomic footprints that sustain the nation’s infrastructure development. To date, UNELCO has contributed VT3.1 billion directly to the national government through Value-Added Tax (VAT), import duties, land taxes, Utilities Regulatory Authority (URA) taxes, and Independent Power Producer (IPP) fees stemming from local solar farms.

Furthermore, the company’s primary shareholder, the Vanuatu National Provident Fund (VNPF), has successfully funneled VT1.8 billion in dividends back into public coffers.

Yet, GM Petit emphasises that the company’s real local impact is felt directly in the community marketplaces. UNELCO has injected VT3.5 billion into domestic businesses, sub-contractors, and service providers. This massive financial web supports everything from local security firms, green space maintenance crews and meter readers to the food and accommodation sectors hosting international safety trainers.

“We continuously seek out young Ni-Vanuatu talent,” he stated, underlining a corporate push for youth employment. “But it is not just for the sake of hiring them. It is about providing rigorous safety induction training so our youth stay safe while executing highly dangerous, critical utility work,” he stated.

Turning his attention toward the young, first-time homeowners expected to flood the Seafront expo looking to “invest in what matters most,” Petit directly acknowledged the elephant in the room: electricity in Vanuatu is expensive. For a young family trying to establish a home, a heavy monthly utility bill can crush their long-term financial security.

However, echoing the expo’s sentiment that a home is more than just a structural building, Petit’s primary advice for a “smart home” did not involve buying expensive, high-tech electronic gadgets. Instead, he urged builders to look closely at classic, passive architectural design principles that prevent high electricity bills before appliances are even plugged in.

“I highly encourage people to prioritise proper thermal insulation,” Petit advised. He issued a sharp warning against recent architectural trends: do not paint your roof black or any other dark colour. Dark surfaces absorb the fierce Pacific sun, turning ceilings into radiant heaters.

Instead, Petit advises investing heavily in proper roof insulation, planting trees or flowers in the yard to shield exposed concrete walls from direct sunlight, and ensuring doors are completely air-tight. By managing the home’s thermal footprint naturally, air conditioning units do not have to overwork, instantly driving down domestic power usage. This passive defence can be further enhanced by committing to energy-saving bulbs and always switching off idle appliances.

When pressed on how UNELCO can collaborate with housing developers to make renewable energy connections affordable for low-income families, Petit offered a refreshingly honest reality check.

While individual rooftop solar panels are frequently marketed as a seamless cure-all for 100% renewable consumption, Petit noted that they remain prohibitively expensive for the average working-class family. Furthermore, dense urban environments introduce heavy physical limitations.

A single large tree or a slightly larger double-storey home built next door can create immediate “shadowing effects”, blocking sunlight and rendering an expensive residential solar setup highly inefficient.

True renewable accessibility across Port Vila will not happen through isolated personal rooftop setups. Instead, Petit firmly believes that the collective path forward hinges on expanding centralized utility-scale infrastructure.

The solution lies in developing large-scale solar farms—much like the existing Kawene solar facility—but critically upgrading them with an industrial-sized solar-powered battery storage network capable of reliably feeding stable renewable energy directly into the main public grid.

As the Seafront becomes centre stage for three days of inspiration and innovation, UNELCO’s message to the public aligns seamlessly with the event’s core philosophy. Building a smarter Vanuatu requires a blend of massive structural grid investments, clever local trade partnerships, and simple, everyday design choices by local families. True protection starts from the roof down.