Columnist: ‘Big Wind’ a Must No Matter What, Including Condemnation, ‘Bribes’ to Residents, Huge Investment

We believe energy and technology columnist Jay Fidell is on target on most subjects he covers, but his ThinkTech column in the Star-Advertiser today is not one of them.

Fidell thinks the so-called Big Wind neighbor island wind farm and inter-island cable project is so absolutely critical to Hawaii’s energy future that it simply must happen, no matter the cost and no matter how objectionable the project might be to Molokai and Lanai residents and those who agree with them.

Calling Big Wind the “keystone of our Clean Energy Initiative,” Fidell argues that Hawaii must “get over” the reluctance to initiate eminent domain proceedings.

“The governor needs to get the Big Wind parties in a room and jawbone them into a deal,” Fidell writes. “Failing that, he should do exactly what he threatened – yes, condemnation. Take heart, governor. Be impatient about clean energy – you have the power. Make eminent domain imminent. Many people will support you in this, and a condemnation will assure progress on wind and other projects. Do it once and things will be easier going forward.”

In other words, run roughshod over the legitimate concerns of neighbor islanders whose public statements on Big Wind are virtually unanimous in opposition. Is this the state of affairs we want in the Aloha State?

Benefits or Bribes?

The ThinkTech columnist says “there’s a kind of benefits package inflation going on” to – let’s face it – bribe/entice those residents into supporting Big Wind and forever changing the look, feel and nature of their islands. As Fidell notes, a 200-megawatt wind farm requires “something over 10,000 acres” as a footprint.

The benefits on the table include a 50-percent cut in electricity rates; improved water utilities, roads and fire stations; scholarships and educational programs, and preservation of native lands.

That last one is of course ironic – land preservation programs as 10,000 acres are turned over for generations to wind turbine towers taller than the First Hawaiian Bank building in downtown Honolulu.

But think about the education lessons that might flow from these enticements. What lessons would neighbor island children learn about government’s relationship with its citizens if eminent domain is exercised? What lessons would be learned about how one gets what one wants?

The best lesson for all of us from this frenzy over Big Wind would be a recognition that a solid plan has yet to be developed to deliver firm power to the citizens. These overly-involved and intricate plans to make Big Wind happen remind us of the parable of the camel and the eye of a needle. Does a good plan require this much intrigue? Wouldn’t a preferred and superior energy future for the state require far less gyrations and be obvious in its relative simplicity?

The Big Wind Basket

The most dangerous aspect of “Big Wind or Bust” is that this project could soak up $3 billion that might otherwise be invested to ensure a strong energy future for Hawaii. Wind is an intermittent power source, and the neighbor island farms would fall far short of delivering their 400 MW of installed capacity to Oahu.

The farms’ capacity factor is estimated to be between 20 and 38 percent, meaning Oahu would receive on average between 80 and about 150 MW of power -- not the aggregate 400 MW on the turbines’ nameplates.

An average output of 150 MW and less can’t possibly justify a $3 billion investment. That amount, invested in ocean thermal energy conversion, which this blog has been touting since its first post, would surely move OTEC from its current promising-but-risky phase into large-scale energy production – with NO on-land impacts.

OTEC plants floating miles off each island could provide the secure energy future for Hawaii that Big Wind can’t. So could geothermal energy from an expanded resource on the Big Island and possibly on Maui, as well. Like OTEC, geothermal would be a base load energy source.

This blog isn’t the only advocate for these energy technologies; see Kuokoa’s website for background and advocacy regarding geothermal energy. And we certainly are not the only ones who believe Big Wind’s on-land impact would be too severe to tolerate; see the Friends of Lanai website.

Betting the Future

We do have to thank Jay Fidell for painting this issue in the starkest and most alarming terms – the seizure of private land to enable the big dreams of a relatively small group of energy planners who are satisfied with betting our future on how strong the wind will blow years from now.

Are we blind to the bizarre weather shifts Hawaii has experienced this year alone? Don’t our planners believe climate change is happening, and if they do, are they so certain Hawaii’s trade winds will always be there?

Of two things we are certain: The sun will continue to shine and warm our tropical ocean, the world’s largest solar energy “battery” and OTEC engine. And Pele's geothermal power will always be with us, too.

OTEC and geothermal energy are Hawaii’s energy future. That’s where electricity customers should willing to have their dollars invested – if not for this generation's benefit, then for the benefit of all that follow.

Public TV Show Reviews Hawaii’s Energy Future

Afternoon Update: HECO urges PUC to reject Friends of Lanai petition on Big Wind bidding.
There never can be too much conversation about getting off oil in the Aloha State, so the topic on public television’s “PBS Hawaii Insights” show last week was more of what we needed.

Watch it and you can pick and choose the parts you like, the parts you don’t like and the parts that support your particular technology preference and/or your major concerns. We’ve noted here our concern about the Big Wind project, which at times has resembled a “soap opera” with its big swings in plot and players.

Our biggest concern is that a great deal of effort and faith has been invested in Big Wind by many key players, including some on this TV show, even though the entire project is highly problematic at this time. The anticipated impacts to be visited on Molokai and Lanai may be so great in the end that Big Wind simply won’t happen, and you can be sure opponents on those islands will be heard.

That’s why we wonder whether $3 billion invested in the two neighbor island wind farms and an undersea cable to connect them to Oahu would soak up so much money from Hawaii as a whole – businesses, residents, government – that there would be nrothing left for other technologies that conceivably could come online later. In that regard, we’ve picked the following quotes.

Hermina Morita, chair of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission:

“One of the key objectives of Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative is to demonstrate with the US Department of Energy that there’s no one solution, that it will take multiple technologies, diversity and the integration of these various technologies to come to a solution, and what better place to do it than Hawaii….? There’s no one technology that’s gonna solve our problem, and we really have to approach this from a systems (basis)….”

Mike Hamnett, chair of the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum:

“There are a number of (technologies) that are right over the horizon. So in the whole biofuels area, a lot of people are looking forward to the role that algae will play…. The people who are in the algae business they’re saying it’s three years, five years away, but having the diversity of resources allows us to not put all our eggs in one basket, so if we get a new technology….even ocean thermal energy conversion has got a lot of potential….but if we take a diversified approach to the whole thing, and as these new technologies come on line we can swap them out for the things we’ve already developed and get the best of all worlds, rather than putting all of our eggs in any single technology basket.”

There’s that energy basket again, and without actually connecting his remarks to Big Wind, the HEPF chair mirrored the same concern that we have – that the Big Wind project is becoming the technology that’s far more desirable than all the others, notwithstanding the breadth of discussion about other technologies on the program.

Please watch the video, then chime in with your opinions at the Hawaii Energy Forum, which is linked at the top of the page. Click on any of the major issues listed there, such as Energy Policy to comment on the TV show, register in the upper right-hand corner (if you haven’t already) and weigh in on one of the most important conversations happening in Hawaii.

First Wind, Rejected at Every Turn, Keeps Trying

(Evening Update: Please visit our sister blog, Citizens Helping Officials Respond to Emergencies (CHORE), for our instant analysis of what was missing in communications to Oahu residents during the hours-long blackout late today.)

First Wind, the Boston-based energy company, must be wondering if it has lost its touch. After being hailed for its wind projects on Maui and a new one on Oahu’s North Shore, First Wind is getting nowhere with its bid to be a player in the Big Wind inter-island energy project.

The Public Utilities Commission has rejected First Wind’s request for an extension to secure land for a 200-megawatt wind farm either on Molokai or Maui. The company’s efforts to cut a deal with Molokai Ranch were spurned, and the ranch has turned to Pattern Energy of San Francisco for that island’s share of the project.

The PUC said First Wind didn’t have proper standing to file an extension request so it could find the land it needs. Only parties to the Commission’s docket may do so, the PUC’s denial letter said, and Hawaiian Electric Company, which is a party, refused First Wind’s request to file the extension on its behalf.

That makes three rejections for First Wind – by Molokai Ranch, the HECO and now the PUC. Unknow now is whether the PUC will add another by rejecting the company’s protest of Castle & Cooke’s assignment of 200 MW of allotted wind energy potential from Lanai to Molokai and Pattern Energy.

Soap Opera-ishness

We had to make up that word to capture the craziness that the Big Wind project has become. Also protesting the C&C “assignment” is the Friends of Lanai group, which noted last week that Pattern Energy “is not a party to any PUC Docket, nor party to any agreement with any public agency in Hawaii. Despite claims to the contrary, FOL believes HECO and C&C have no right – and no authority – to arbitrarily ‘select’ a new developer.”

One possible outcome of all this would be the PUC’s agreement with First Wind and FOL that C&C can’t just up and “assign” 200 phantom MWs to Pattern, which showed up late in the game at Molokai Ranch’s invitation.

Another possible outcome would be for all of Big Wind’s 400 MWs to be built on Lanai, an option that surely would trigger the mother of all protests by the FOL group and others.

It’s not for nothing that we’ve called this whole affair a soap opera.

More ‘Big Wind’ Twists; First Wind Objects to New Plan

(Update on Friends of Lanai PUC petition near end of post.)
We’ve compared the Big Wind energy project to a TV soap opera because of the twists and turns, the new relationships that supplant the old, the spurned suitors who aren’t taking the rejection well – it’s all there in some of our recent posts, starting here. And now there’s more drama.

First Wind, the energy company that has created a name for itself in the islands by building wind farms on Maui and Oahu, was to be part of the 400-megawatt wind project, but it failed to reach an agreement with Molokai Ranch to build 200 MW on that island.

The ranch turned to a new company – Pattern Energy of San Francisco – to develop the farm on its land. Castle & Cooke, which owns nearly all of Lanai, wants to build a 200-MW farm there, but because First Wind fell out of the plan, C&C believes it has the right under the original Big Wind agreement with Hawaiian Electric Company and the state to build all 400 on that island. (Consider us among the skeptics that such a huge development could ever occur there; a 200-MW farm seems problematic enough in light of Lanai residents’ opposition.)

But C&C now says it wants to assign 200 MW back to Molokai, where Pattern Energy would build a farm with Molokai Ranch’s blessing. First Wind is having none of it, as reported in Pacific Business News, which seems to be doing a more diligent job on this story than any other media outlet.

Paul Gaynor, First Wind’s CEO, has written to the Public Utilities Commission to object to the Molokai Ranch/Castle & Cooke/Pattern Energy deal, calling it a direct violation of the original agreement with HECO to connect 400 MW of installed wind energy capacity on the two neighbor islands with Oahu via undersea cable.

Subversion Claimed

Gaynor wrote that the agreement is now “being subverted, if not breached, by these most recent developments in which C&C has unilaterally claimed a right to develop the full 400 MW and further is seeking to ‘assign' 200 MW to an entirely new party its ‘development opportunity’ on another island, Molokai, with respect to which C&C has no relationship, contract or any other legal rights whatsoever.”

See what we mean about the soap-opera comparison? The only thing missing so far is a shotgun wedding, and that might just be in the script, too, if the state and utility energy planners become desperate to connect the wind farms to Oahu’s grid.

Some are supporting options to massive wind development, such as widespread solar energy distributed generation and/or base load sources like geothermal energy and ocean thermal energy conversion, which might be developed over the next decade or two and connected to Oahu. The neighbor island wind farms would be intermittent sources that on average would deliver somewhere between 25 and 38 percent of their installed capacity to Oahu.

Hawaii’s energy planners have integrated Big Wind to such an extent that supporters say failure to build it will threaten the state’s ability to meet the 2030 goals of the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative. Others simply ask, so what, and is it all that critical to push through Big Wind in light of its attendant controversies and uncertainties?

FOL Files Petition

Meanwhile, the Friends of Lanai group filed a petition with the Public Utilities Commission yesterday to reopen the competitive bidding process for Big Wind. The FOL press release says:

"Pattern Energy is not a party to any PUC Docket, nor party to any agreement with any public agency in Hawaii. Despite claims to the contrary, FOL believes HECO and C&C have no right -- and no authority -- to arbitrarily 'select' a new developer. The entire process has been shrouded in secrecy. There has been no public discussion of costs, no responsible consideration of other means to meet the non-binding goals of the State's renewable portfolio standards, and no clarity on where the proposed undersea cable might surface on Oahu. The process hasn't even determined from which islands the wind resources would be harvested. The rush to Big Wind should stop here and now."

4/29 Update: The Star-Advertiser covers the FOL angle today.

Join the Conversation

If you have thoughts on all of this, Hawaii Energy (the state’s conservation and efficiency program administrator) has a Forum where you can express them. Just go to the Forum and register by clicking on the link in the upper right corner. Look for the Big Wind discussion within the Renewables category for now.

Finding a Way for Solar Power To Reach Its Potential

The Star-Advertiser devoted editorial page space a couple days ago to a problem that’s holding Hawaii back from achieving greater reliance on solar energy.

Blame it on the clouds. When they pass over photovoltaic systems on rooftops, PV power output understandably drops, and that can affect the electric grid’s stability, according to Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO).

HECO requires a costly study before new PV systems can be installed on neighborhood circuits that already have at least 15 percent of their total generating capacity coming from alternative resources.

Only 4,000 of the state’s 267,000 single-family homes have PV systems, says the editorial, and that number isn’t likely to grow in neighborhoods where the 15-percent barrier has been reached. Nobody has been willing to shell out the $15,000 to $40,000 cost for one of those studies that could lead to an installation.

Eleven out of Oahu’s 465 circuits are thus stymied. The remaining 454 circuits would seem to offer plenty of expansion possibilities, but those 11 are where the money is, as evident by their PV penetration.

Sharing the Load

Finding a path for solar power expansion on circuits where economic power is concentrated and the will to invest already exists is the challenge. There has to be a way, perhaps by adding another of those small surcharges or fees we all pay in our electric bill to fund rebates for energy-efficient appliances.

The beneficiaries of the surcharges are those among us who replace inefficient refrigerators, water heaters and even light bulbs, but the entire population also benefits when we cut our kilowatthour demand and therefore our reliance on oil to generate electricity. The same would be true of a surcharge that funds those PV-connected studies.

Do the laws of physics allow an entire circuit to be PV-powered? Only in the dreams of PV system marketers, no doubt, but that could be a goal for the 21st Century – after lots of experimentation, development of storage capabilities and, yes, more studies.

Kuokoa Promotes Its Plan for Hawaii to Get Off Oil

Kuokoa, the newly formed company (Hawaiian language advocates prefer Ku`oko`a), has a plan to accelerate Hawaii’s move to energy independence.

Eliminating oil from our daily diet not only is desired but a necessity in the short term, not just the long. Oil prices continue to rise driven by worldwide consumption (see oil clock at right) along with seen and unseen forces.

Kuokoa CEO Roald Marth has been giving presentations to groups large and small in recent months. He spoke to the Rotary Club of Honolulu on April 5th. If you have any interest in Hawaii’s energy dilemma, do yourself a favor and watch the video.

Nation’s Highest Gas Prices Reach Historic Territory; Hawaii Drivers Have Never Had To Pay This Much

That's the headline today at our Yes2Rail blog, where we conclude that Honolulu rail's future success is assured -- for cost reasons alone, but certainly also for convenience.

The conclusion here at Hawaii Energy Options is that new record-level prices for gasoline in Honolulu and statewide drive home the importance of reducing the state's demand for oil to generate electricity and power our transportation sector.

Please visit Yes2Rail, especially if you'll be filling up in Hawaii in the next few days.

Feedback – plus Wind Study as Recommended Reading

We did the unusual over the weekend and sent a link to Friday’s post on Big Wind to a few dozen energy-focused people in industry, academia and government. We asked for feedback if our conclusions in that post were off the mark.

And we got feedback. Dr. Luis Vega’s opinion counts for a lot, and he recommended reading the “Oahu Wind Integration Study” by Jay Griffin et al:

Simply by reading the Executive Summary you will be positively surprised at the technical viability of incorporating additional wind and PV into the Oahu grid with “state-of-the-art” modifications ( e.g., up-gradable controls to modify ramp-up speed of existing fossil fueled generators and the latest controls available for WTGs). This report forced me to “upgrade” my technical analysis (cost, political viability etc. is a different discussion) and open my mind to additional wind as well as nascent wave energy and other intermittent resources. I hope that reading the Griffin report will open up your mind to wonderful possibilities. It opened mine.

So we've started to read the report and, like Dr. Vega, recommend it to all Hawaii-based visitors to this post. From this lay person's perspective, it covers generation issues remarkably well. So far the reading suggests the Study evaluates the feasibility of adding 400 megawatts of wind power from neighbor island farms.

We'll continue reading the study to its end, but we’d make the point that feasibility isn’t what is driving our present concerns about Big Wind.  Impacts and costs are top of mind here at Hawaii Energy Options. So, too, is a “favorite” renewable energy option of ours – ocean thermal energy conversion.

OTEC is mentioned numerous times in the Study because it assumes the addition of a 25 MW OTEC plant by 2014. Here are two such entries:

“A small amount of baseload energy is provided by HPower (waste to energy), Honua (gasification) and OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion).” And… “One of the significant changes from the present operating year to 2014 is the additional capacity of HPower and contributions from OTEC and Honua.”

As an OTEC advocate, we’d like to believe this ocean technology could conceivably be providing much more than 25 MW to Oahu’s grid by 2030, which is the target year for attaining the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative’s goals.

Does the Study assess how much OTEC generation would be feasible if $3 billion were spent to develop 400 MW of Big Wind power and the undersea cable to transit that electricity to Oahu? Don’t know yet, because we haven’t finished reading it, but early indications are that Big OTEC isn’t analyzed.

But we are reminded of those Nature programs on public television. Some animal species will sacrifice a new hatchling or cub to ensure the viability of others. Could OTEC’s promise of abundant baseload energy be fully realized (once it’s proven in this decade) if Big Wind already is in the nest? How much money can these islands afford to feed its renewable energy projects? Would Big OTEC even be attempted if so much is spent on Big Wind/Cable?

We don’t know the answers and would hope someone as capable as Dr. Vega – who heads up the Nawaii National Marine Renewable Energy Center – and/or the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute would look into it.

Now….to finish reading the study. We encourage your feedback by adding a comment, below.

NY Times Nearly Ignores Big Wind Capacity Factor, Which Must Be Major Consideration In Project Decisions

Capacity factor comparison between energy technologies by NREL. The dot is each technology's average capacity factor; the horizontal line shows the range.

The New York Times has published a two-part series on Hawaii’s energy dilemma, yesterday and today, and it’s a pretty good summation of the Big Wind project to build 400 megawatts (MW) of installed wind energy capacity on the neighbor islands to meet energy demand on Oahu.

There are two major problems with this series from where we sit:

1) Developer Castle & Cooke didn’t respond to the Times request to be interviewed for the piece. More on that below.

2) Although the wind farms’ capacity factor is mentioned in passing in today’s story, the impression you get from the piece is that Big Wind will provide 400 MW of power for Oahu’s use. It won’t, and that’s because even a capacity factor of an optimistic 40 percent for the farms means they’d deliver only 160 MW on average to Oahu’s grid. (That doesn’t even factor in line loss when transmitting the power via undersea and overland cables.)

A Hawaiian Electric Company spokesman goes so far as to say Big Wind “could provide as much as 14 percent of Hawaii’s electricity….” Recall if you will that little equation you learned in algebra class that helps in times like this. Using the 40-percent capacity factor (which may be high), the question is: “If 160 megawatts provide 14 percent of Hawaii’s electricity, how many megawatts would 100 percent be?”

Cross-multiply 160 and 10, divide the product by 14 and you get 1,142.857 megawatts as the total Hawaii electricity production in 2030. That clearly won’t be the total 19 years from now; Oahu’s peak demand is more than that today, so how did the spokesperson arrive at 14 percent for Big Wind’s contribution?

If you use 400 MW in this equation – the nameplate maximum generating capacity for Big Wind – you arrive at a much bigger number, 2,857.142 MW in 2030, which is a more realistic estimate of electricity generation two decades from now.

So it appears once again that Big Wind proponents are selling the project based on the wind farms’ installed capacity and not how much power the farms on Molokai and Lanai reasonably could be expected to generate for Oahu's benefit.

The local media consistently use the nameplate figure when writing about Big Wind, which means they’re either ignoring or don’t understand the capacity factor issue. That’s obviously a big failure in their reporting because it oversells the project’s presumed value in comparison to its huge environmental impact.

You can read about capacity factor all over the Internet by entering the phrase in a search window: localize your inquiry by adding "Hawaii" to the search.

Castle & Cooke: ‘No Comment’

From today’s New York Times story on Big Wind: “Officials with Castle & Cooke did not respond to interview requests for this story.”

A reasonable question: Why not? As a key player in this project, how does Castle & Cooke decide to ignore the New York Times, which many believe is the nation’s best and most influential newspaper?

We don’t have an answer to that question and would ask Lanai residents to take a stab at one. They’re used to dealing with the company, which owns 98 percent of the island.

If anything, Castle & Cooke should be bending over backwards to be responsive on a project that evokes so much skepticism, criticism and anger. As the Times piece and other media report, nearly everyone who’s spoken up at the programmatic environmental impact statement hearings on the two neighbor islands has strongly opposed Big Wind.

This is no time for bunker mentality. If Big Wind proponents can’t stand the heat of a simple media interview, it’s hard to imagine them being forthcoming when the going gets really tough.

Big Wind certainly is in for some tough going, and skeptics have reason to worry now whether the State has too many of its energy eggs in this basket. Maybe the best news in this Times story is that the State says it will take a longer look at renewable energy alternatives to Big Wind.

Geothermal, ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) and distributed solar generation presumably will be high on that list. Note geothermal's capacity factor in the above chart; it's among the highest of all the technologies since it is base load and not intermittent like wind power. OTEC isn't on the chart because it hasn't been built yet due to financing challenges, but Hawaii remains a key location for several companies working on it. Once built, base-load OTEC presumably would have a high capacity factor rivaling geothermal.

Yet Another ‘Big Wind’ Plan Switcheroo: C&C ‘Allocates’ 200 Phantom Lanai Megawatts to Molokai for Farm

One really does get the feeling the proverbial powers that be are hell-bent on getting Big Wind built, no matter what and no matter how many hoops they have to jump through to get there.

Today’s news is that Castle & Cooke, which once upon a time had been granted the opportunity in a paper deal with Hawaiian Electric Company to develop 400 megawatts of wind energy on Lanai, has “allocated” 200 of them to Molokai.

That seems like a stretch, since there was never any certainty 400 or 200 megawatts of wind energy would ever be built on Lanai. The opposition of local residents and the considerable impact a huge wind farm would have on the island (it would cover a quarter of the land) make the outcome of any such plans problematic at this point.

But since everything’s on paper so far, allocating 200 MW of Lanai wind energy to Molokai seems easy enough, even if keeping the players straight takes some doing.

Castle & Cooke’s Molokai megawatts are now apparently intended for Pattern Energy of California, which stepped in after developer First Wind was unable to secure an agreement with Molokai Ranch to build a 200-MW farm there.

First Wind missed a deadline to seal up the land and has asked the Public Utilities Commission for an extension. In the meantime, the ranch said it would work with Pattern Energy to fulfill Molokai’s portion of the Big Wind plan.

And then it was revealed on Friday that Governor Abercrombie was threatening to seize 10,000 acres of Molokai Ranch land through eminent domain if the ranch didn’t play nice in the Big Wind project.

All this frenetic maneuvering makes you wonder why the Big Wind players are prepared to do just about anything to be sure the plan actually is realized – seize thousands of acres of ranch land, “allocate” megawatts from one island to another, whatever.

Is it because it’s Big Wind or nothing – that all the State’s energy eggs are in the Big Wind basket? And where Molokai and Lanai residents fit in all of this is still anybody’s guess. Will it matter that they’re overwhelmingly opposed?

Come back tomorrow for a new twist, because at this pace, there’s sure to be one.

‘Big Wind’ Soap Takes a ‘Who Shot JR?’ Plot Twist; Governor Talks Land Grab if Molokai Ranch Balks

Yesterday’s post likened the Big Wind energy project to a soap opera and urged readers to stay tuned as the plot thickened. It’s the most confusing energy plan going, and the latest twist hints at desperation by the State to make Big Wind happen, no matter what.

According to Pacific Business News, Governor Neil Abercrombie is threatening to overcome Molokai Ranch’s refusal to work with developer First Wind by seizing land for a 200 MW wind farm through eminent domain proceedings.

Calling this affair a “soap opera” was whimsical yesterday, but not today, now that the Governor’s trying to force a shotgun wedding between the ranch and First Wind.

No deal has been consummated except on paper or in officials' imaginations, and nobody’s pregnant, so what’s with the State’s urgency to force through this plan?

Clearly, State officials have stacked virtually all their big energy eggs in the Big Wind basket, and it’s prepared to break new legal ground, according to PBN’s story, rather than scramble those eggs.

By threatening eminent domain, Abercrombie is also telling Molokai residents to take a hike. And it’s not just Molokai residents who appear overwhelmingly opposed to Big Wind; the Friends of Lanai group is engaged in a strong anti-Big Wind campaign to prevent at least a quarter of their island from being ceded to a farm.

So we have 400 MW of wind energy in a nice plan but no certainty that those wind farms will be built or where they’ll be built and no certainty that the undersea cable plan to bring that power to Oahu will ever be executed either.

What’s missing here is Plan B, but the threat to seize Molokai Ranch suggests there is no Plan B – just Big Wind.

What about expanded geothermal? What about distributed generation via thousands of solar panels on roofs all over the state? What about finally launching a serious ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) effort? Both geothermal and OTEC are base load, not intermittent like wind; both would have much higher capacity factors* compared to wind, and OTEC would have the additional advantage of not upsetting the neighbors. OTEC plants would be floated miles off shore.

The plot line for this soap is way too shaky, and there could be bodies all over the place before it’s over – wind developers, land owners, residents, State and local politicians, electricity customers….you name it.

If you’re confused about where it’s going, just wait until Big Wind winds up in a protracted court case that puts everything on hold as oil prices go through the roof and consumers pay through the nose.

Better to scramble the plan now and create a new energy omelet with better ingredients.
----------
* A facility's capacity factor is the percentage of its installed generation capability that's actually  delivered in electrical power, on average, to the grid. With a CP around 25%, Big Wind's farms would deliver only about 100 MW or less to Oahu.

‘Big Wind’ Soap Opera: Search for Tomorrow's Energy

The Actors: Hawaiian Electric Company, Molokai Ranch, First Wind, Pattern Energy, Castle and Cooke, Lanai Residents, Molokai Residents, Legislators, State Energy Office, Public Utilities Commission, the Media and others yet to be identified.

The Supporting Cast: The Inter-Island Cable Project, electricity customers.

The Locations: Molokai and/or Lanai and/or Maui and maybe the sea floor between these islands and Oahu.

The Plot: The State believes the wind resource on neighbor islands Molokai and Lanai can provide 400 megawatts of power to Oahu – 200 MW each – by tying the knot with the state’s population center using an inter-island cable. Landowner Molokai Ranch balked at the proposal for a long-term engagement with First Wind, which consequently missed a deadline to secure a site for its wind farm on the suddenly-not-so-Friendly Isle. The ranch said First Wind hadn’t been good at courting Molokai residents, who are famously shy regarding plans for the island. First Wind asked the Public Utilities Commission to extend the deadline to find land for its farm, but Hawaiian Electric Company refused to hold its peace and objected to any such extension. First Wind’s unsettled situation prompted HECO and others to suggest that maybe all 400 MW could be sited on Lanai, where residents are as shy as their Molokai cousins about a wind farm that might cover as much as a quarter of their island. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the landowner found a new suitor for a wind farm – Pattern Energy of San Francisco, CA, but legislators are wondering whether the impacts the wind farms would have on the two host islands would be enough to call the whole thing off.

Remaining To Be Resolved: Will the Public Utilities Commission extend First Wind’s search for a land-owning partner, or will the PUC favor Pattern Energy as a bonafide suitor? Will Molokai residents show a friendlier side to any of the players, and what about the Friends of Lanai, who want nothing to do with Castle and Cooke’s 200-MW Big Wind plan, let alone 400? Will Maui become an alternative to these budding relationships? How much power can actually be delivered to Oahu from intermittent-source wind farms on neighbor islands with a capacity factor in the neighborhood of 25 percent? Will the media ever understand capacity factor – the percentage of a generating facility’s installed capacity that on average can actually be delivered to the electricity grid? What will the undersea cable linkage between Maui County and Oahu actually cost, who will develop it and what would be the impacts of its installation? And what will electric customers say about opening their wallets when it finally dawns on them that they’re expected to pay for all this investment?

The plot can only thicken, so stay tuned to Big Wind as The Players maneuver behind the scenes and act out their parts in what’s already become the state's most confusing energy plan.

All 400 MW of ‘Big Wind’ Project Headed to Lanai?

That’s the prospect – some Lanai residents might call it a nightmare – that may be in store for the Big Wind energy project now that First Wind hasn’t secured the land it needed to build half the project on Molokai.  (See Update below.)

Pacific Business News today speculates/postulates that the only option to move Big Wind forward is to build all 400 megawatts of the project on Lanai.

“Hawaiian Electric Co. officials have told PBN in the past that if Molokai's part of the project fell through then all 400 mw could be developed on Lanai, where Castle & Cooke is the developer for that proposed wind farm.”

It’s hard to imagine that happening no matter how generous the community benefit package that's offered to Lanai residents. If one-fifth of the island would be needed for a 200-MW wind farm, would 40 percent be reserved for a farm twice as big?

Castle and Cooke may own 98 percent of the island, but would residents accept that much of an impact?  Our guess is no.

So here we go – flying right into a headwind that’s buffeting the Big Wind project, which in many respects has been the Big Egg Basket for utility and state energy planners. Whether those eggs are headed for a scrambling remains – as they say in the editorials – to be seen.

APRIL FIRST UPDATE: The other half of Big Wind may be going to Maui -- and it's apparently no joke.

With Big Wind's location -- the most important detail of all -- still undecided, you have to hope energy managers are not locked in so tight on the project that they're giving no attention to ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) and geothermal technologies. 

The latter is proven in Hawaii and could be expanded to both increase its contribution to the Big Island's electricity grid and create alternative energy byproducts -- hydrogen and ammonia, which could be exported for use in transportation and agriculture.  

OTEC would tap into the world's largest solar storage "battery," the tropical ocean that surrounds Hawaii.  As the most promising long-term base load renewable energy resource for the islands, OTEC is ripe for implementation.  

It's time to move the technology beyond promising and start the doing. Locally and elsewhere, companies are working on it.

Oahu Greets First New Wind Farm in a Generation

Looking at the recent progress in wind energy development in the Hawaiian Islands, it seems odd that the most “recent” wind farm dedication on Oahu was 25 years ago this month.

The occasion was the official start-up of Hawaiian Electric Industries’ 15-turbine farm in the hills above Kahuku. The farm's construction began in 1985, and the 15 Westinghouse turbines were plainly visible from Kamehameha Highway and the Turtle Bay Resort.

So was their failure. The turbines deteriorated rapidly in the North Shore’s caustic elements. Blades were thrown, gears failed and it wasn’t long before some of the towers were missing their nacelle. Eventually, they all came down, including the world’s largest wind turbine that was later erected nearby.

But that was then. The welcome mat is out for a new generation of wind turbines (above) that will be dedicated today above Kahuku to power about 7,500 homes.

First Wind is extending its industry savvy in Hawaii conditions gained on Maui. The farm has 30 megawatts of capacity as well as a 10-megawatt battery storage system.

The expectation is that this farm will be much more resilient than the original Westinghouse installation and that we may see another farm on Oahu within 25 months, not 25 years. It’s going to take that kind of progress from wind and other forms of renewable energy if Hawaii has any hope of slashing its debilitating dependence on oil.

Hawaii Energy Doubles Rebate for Solar Water Heating

Hawaii’s solar water heating installations are up around 80,000, giving the Aloha State the highest per-capita rate in the country. But it could and maybe should be a lot higher. The sun’s out here nearly all the time! That includes that cold dark stretch called Winter on the mainland.

Hawaii Energy, the administrator of the state’s conservation and efficiency program, is trying to improve the numb the pers upping the rebate for new solar water installations between March 21 and May 31. It will double to $1,500 during that period.

The company maintains a Forum and invites anyone with questions, suggestions or insights to join the discussion. n

Big Island Puts On a Show for Geothermal Energy

Hawaii's visitor industry is chugging along just fine compared to one and two years ago, and the new eruption phase of Kilauea Volcano on the island of Hawaii can only add to the numbers. According to local and national media, visitors are flocking to view the latest phase of the world’s longest volcanic eruption.

Beautiful, awe-inspiring, amazing – call it what you will, and those who are determined to expand Hawaii’s renewable energy resources call it a great teaching moment, too.

You wouldn’t want to build a geothermal energy plant anywhere near the rift zone where the lava fountains recently appeared, but supporters say there’s plenty of heat beneath the surface in the Puna district where the existing power plant has been producing power for nearly two decades.

Enjoy the eruption photos and videos at the above links, and when you do, imagine what capturing just a tiny fraction of that sub-surface heat and turning it into other forms of energy would mean to the most oil-dependent state in the country. Geothermal energy will help end that distinction.

Politics & Energy: States Start Backing Away

The more other states go weak in the knees about renewable energy development for political or other reasons, the more steadfast Hawaii looks by comparison.

SustainableBusiness.com has done a short survey of the energy landscape across the mainland now that different people are sitting in their governor’s office. The report documents more negatives than positives.

It’s not just energy, of course. Governors are tripping over themselves and each other on their way to network interviews as they turn down billions in federal funding for rail projects.

As we said after alleged baseball fans rejected the sport following 1994’s MLB strike, that means “more beer for the rest of us.” This time around, maybe that means more money for energy and rail projects in Hawaii.

We can hope, because as the charts show, oil prices are uncomfortably above $100/barrel and heading north.

More Geothermal Power

Word from the Big Island that Hawaii Electric Light Company and Puna Geothermal Venture have reached a deal for an additional 8 megawatts of geothermal energy that will be dispatchable -- i.e., available on demand by system operators. As noted on Ku`oko`a chairman Richard Ha's website, this new contract has other attributes, such as a lower fixed price per kilowatthour of geothermal energy.

Pitching OTEC

Elsewhere, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory sent three "story tips" to the media today, including one on ocean thermal energy conversion. We OTEC supporters will gladly accept support from each and every quarter, including Tennessee. Tennessee?

What Are Hawaii’s Parameters To Get Off Oil? Total Project Costs, Impacts Deserve Full Consideration, too

The big spread in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser "Insight" section today is all about the Big Wind project – although to the writer’s credit, she didn’t actually use the term that’s too much in vogue these days.

Big Wind is the proposal to build 200-MW farms on Molokai and Lanai and export their power via underwater cables to Oahu and within Maui County itself.

Total cost of the two farms and the cable is estimated at $3 billion, or about one billion bucks each. Neighbor island residents who testified at the recent scoping hearings were nearly all opposed to installing 400-foot-tall turbines on their islands and, they say, forever changing the islands’ character.

Paper Deadlines

A US Department of Energy official in the story is credited by the reporter with saying the Big Wind project is “Hawaii’s best option for meeting a deadline now adopted in state law: producing 40 percent of its electricity through renewable sources by 2030.” (That’s a quote from the story, not a direct quote of the official.)

Someone close to the process of creating the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative's goals has said they were pretty much arbitrarily selected. They sounded good at the time, are potentially achievable and still sound good, but the question needs asking: At what price will Hawaii pursue them?

Are there limits to what we’re willing to do and spend to meet the 40-percent goal? We have difficulty believing Lanai and Molokai residents will lower their opposition to hundreds of 400-foot-tall wind turbines on their islands. Call it a hunch based on the fate of other projects that once were up for community acceptance – especially on Molokai.

With geothermal energy already providing base-load power on the Big Island and having a promise of much more, is Big Wind truly the best and most economical way to reach the HCEI goals?

Some already are proposing a major expansion of the Big Island’s geothermal field – in energy output, not the size of the field’s footprint. Hydrogen fuel could be created from the geothermal energy process for transport by ship to other islands and – thinking big – to the mainland or elsewhere. In other words, Hawaii could become an energy exporter by skillfully developing its impressive geothermal resource.

Another potential base-load power source is ocean thermal energy conversion, which still awaits funding for a chance to make good on its vast potential. Today’s Star-Advertiser’s story mentions OTEC as a prominent alternative to Big Wind, and the 2/28 edition of the Wall Street Journal (already available online) touts OTEC as one of three technologies “that may provide more energy in the future.”

Biggest Bang for Buck

Also to the writer’s credit, she did not assert in today's story that Big Wind would actually create 400 MW of electrical power for export to Oahu. As we’ve taken pains to note this month (see earlier posts below this one), something called the “capacity factor” must be considered when evaluating how much power actually would be produced by any given generating plant.

Oil-fired generators have a capacity factor of about 100 percent, since they’re base-load sources and only come off line for maintenance and during the odd unplanned outage. OTEC, if it’s ever built, also would have a CF near 100 percent.

Wind farms have capacity factors much less than that, and it’s been estimated that the Big Wind project’s capacity factor would be around 23 percent due to variability in wind strength. We usually use 25 percent, since one-fourth of 400 MW is easy to calculate. On average, the two wind farms would export about 100 MW of power, not 400.

Dropping one to three billion dollars onto geothermal energy and OTEC could go a long way in achieving HCEI’s paper goals, too. We agree with a Hawaiian Electric Company official who’s quoted in today’s story, “We’re way early to take (any energy source) off the table.”

It also figures that it wouldn’t be right to push one pet project – and that’s what Big Wind seems to have become for many – to the exclusion of other forms of renewable energy that could provide base load power with far fewer impacts.

Here We Go Again – Oil at $111 per Barrel

We started this blog nearly three years ago on the day oil hit $111 on the way up. We even got pretty worked up about it; here’s a taste of our first post:

“OTEC’s too expensive, you say? Shake out the cobwebs! This is 2008, not the 1980s; oil traded at $111 a barrel today!”

We started the blog to promote the unexceptional idea that ocean thermal energy conversion was indeed viable at that price – and even more so after another $36 was tacked onto the barrel price of oil by July.

Where are we headed today? Nobody knows, because nobody knows how the turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East will shake out. We can only assume at this time that the sky’s the limit.

Hawaii has a few more megawatts of installed renewable energy today than it did in March 2008, but the green-energy contribution is still just nibbling around the margins of the total power demand.

Base load energy is what we need. Geothermal energy and OTEC are Hawaii’s best options. No additional megawatts have been added from those technologies in the past three years.

What does that tell you? It says we’re as vulnerable as ever to supply interruptions and spikes in the price of imported energy.

Kama`aina will remember the tire outlet TV spot that played on Honolulu TV stations decades ago:

“Go now, Hawaii. Why pay more?"

Why? Apparently because we’re not yet serious enough about the necessity to get off oil. Maybe the oil crisis of 2011 will do the trick.

All 400 MW of ‘Big Wind’ Could Be Built on Lanai?

That’s what a story in today’s edition of Pacific Business News says in its 7th paragraph:

“All 400 mw could come from Lanai, 400 mw from Molokai or 400 mw could come from Maui,” according an official in the State Energy Office.

The reporter repeats the thought in the 10th graf:

“If Molokai falls through, all 400 mw of energy could be generated on Lanai, as opposed to the original plan to generate 200 mw of wind energy on Lanai and 200 mw on Molokai.”

Was this made known at the “scoping hearing” two weeks ago on Lanai, Molokai, Maui and Oahu? If it was, we missed it in the reporting.

Today’s story focuses on Maui as a potential site for some of the Big Wind project. A representative of First Wind is quoted: “…if we are not able to do the project on Molokai, we would want the state to seriously consider Maui.” So Big Wind’s final location is anything but firm.

That Pesky Capacity Factor–Again

While the Big Wind project is planned for 400 mw of installed capacity, we’re amazed at how loose the reporting is on the actual amount of power that would be delivered by the wind farms.

For example, another PBN story today reports on funding options for an undersea cable to deliver Big Wind electricity to Oahu: “The cable is a critical part of the wind project that would bring 400 megawatts of wind energy from Molokai and Lanai to Oahu.”

No, it wouldn’t. It would deliver the amount of power the wind farms actually would be able to produce due to wind variability, unquestionably less than their installed capacity.

It’s called the “capacity factor,” a subject we covered in late January. Oil-fired power plants have capacity factors close to 100 percent because they’re base-load plants that operate 24/7. Intermittent sources of power like wind and solar farms have much lower capacity factors.

Big Wind’s capacity factor is estimated to be 20 to 25 percent – which means on average, the wind farms would actually be exporting 80 -100 mw of electrical energy between them, or 40 - 50 mw from each island at a cost of $1 billion for each farm to contribute 50 mw or less to Oahu's grid. That's an incredibly steep price.

Why Does this Matter?

To fully understand what we’re getting into with the proposed $3 billion Big Wind project (a billion for each wind farm and another for the cable), we need to accurately assess its anticipated contribution to helping Hawaii get off oil.

When someone writes that Big Wind “could account for up to 25 percent of Oahu’s electricity needs,” we need to appreciate that simply is not true for anything but middle-of-the-night demand -- and it may not even be true then if winds over Molokai and Lanai were light.

Oahu’s peak demand is around 1200 mw, according to a recent column at Renewable Energy World.com by Hawaiian Electric Company CEO Richard M. Rosenblum. To provide 25 percent of the peak demand, Big Wind would itself would have to have 1200 mw of installed capacity!

That would be triple the size and at a presumably much higher cost of the current Big Wind proposal. That surely is not what was discussed at the scoping hearings.

So as Big Wind goes through the required scoping, impact assessing and community relating, let’s all work hard to truly understand the project and what $3 billion (plus?) would get us.

We’ll all be paying for this project in our electric bills. We all need to ask whether that kind of money should be spent on Big Wind or whether a like amount would produce more available renewable power with fewer impacts.

Naturally, we have some thoughts on that subject and have expressed them repeatedly here on this blog. Despite the absence of a test of a commercial-sized plant due to funding impediments, ocean thermal energy conversion is a candidate for base load renewable energy on a scale even larger than Big Wind at the $3 billion investment level.

In light of the strong opposition to Big Wind on Lanai and Molokai, planners might well move some of their fragile energy eggs out of Big Wind’s basket and into the ocean, where they can be hard-boiled.

With Opposition to ‘Big Wind' Strong on N. Islands, What Now Is the Best Path to Hawaii Energy Independence?

Hawaii must get off oil as fast as possible. On that there’s no disagreement beyond maybe the oil companies, but how we get there is another matter.

Neighbor islanders who spoke up on the plan to install large wind farms on Lanai and Molokai – 200 megawatts on each island – clearly don’t want Big Wind. If there’s support on Maui, Molokai and Lanai, it didn’t show up for the hearings.

Civil Beat, Hawaii Reporter and the Molokai Dispatch have carried post-hearing pieces on that neighbor island sentiment. So is that the end of Big Wind? After all that planning, invoking and proselytizing, are Big Wind’s backers going to slip away quietly?

Not likely, with heavyweights Castle & Cooke, First Wind, Hawaiian Electric Industries, the State Energy Office and others having invested so much energy into making it happen. But surely, even the most optimistic among them has cause to pause after the emotional objections at the hearings to forever changing the nature of the host islands.

Link or No Link?

Big Wind presumably makes sense only if a cable transmits the two farms’ electrical output to Oahu. The estimated cost of the farms and the cable link among the islands is $3 billion – steep for an average output of 100 MW or less (figured on a capacity factor of 23-25 percent).

Linking the islands has been a long-term vision, starting perhaps with the late C. Dudley Pratt, Jr., who ascended to HECO’s presidency in 1981 and created HEI within six months as a holding company to facilitate renewable energy development.

Would a cable link be viable with a smaller wind concept? Could Little Wind be built independent of a costly cable -- smaller farms with less impacts that reserve some of their generating capacity for other purposes, such as creating hydrogen and/or ammonia? Would that be acceptable to neighbor islanders?

These and other options need study before tossing out the entire concept of sharing individual islands’ resources with all the others. Sharing already happens all the time among the islands. Some residents believe the neighbor islands could get along just fine without Oahu, thank you, but getting along well or anything close to current living conditions would be doubtful.

Sharing the Load

Hawaii has a strong incentive to embrace all forms of renewable, home-grown energy. No other state comes anywhere close to our dependence on fossil fuel for nearly everything we do. Increasing our clean-energy generation is the goal; creating an acceptable mix of energy sources is the challenge.

Geothermal energy on the Big Island is being promoted as the surest way to satisfy that island’s entire electrical demand and create an export component by manufacturing hydrogen for use in other markets within Hawaii and beyond. Kuokoa Inc. is banking on this concept in its bid to buy out HEI and transform the state to 100-percent renewable energy within a decade.

Others are promoting ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) just as aggressively. This blog has long agreed with their assessment that the tropical ocean’s inexhaustible supply of stored solar energy could meet the entire state’s electrical demand with minimal impact to the islands themselves.

Each of these grand schemes – Big Wind, Big Earth and Big Ocean – will require both creativity and compromises to reach their potential. None can expect a smooth path to fruition. The Big Wind scoping hearings are just a prelude to what lies ahead for all.

How promoters react to the opposition, modify their plans, finance them and build support will determine how quickly Hawaii achieves energy independence. That’s the goal – whether it’s within one decade, two or three.

Confluence of Events: MECO Needs 50 MW of New Firm Renewable Energy, NOAA Launches New OTEC Website

Diagram accompanying today's NOAA website launch. 

Once upon a time, a seminar leader drilled a phrase into his attendees’ heads: “The Universe makes no mistakes,” he’d say over and over, while leaving it to his eager subjects to figure out what that meant in their personal lives.

We’re thinking the proximity of two events that happened apparently independent of one another this week was no mistake.

Tuesday press release: Maui Electric seeks to add 50 megawatts of firm renewable power

Thursday press release: NOAA Launches Website on Emerging Marine Renewable Energy

Coincidence? Not if you believe the Universe makes no mistakes.

MECO’s announcement that it wants a good-sized chunk (for Maui) of firm green power is likely to incentivize ocean thermal energy conversion developers to kick into overdrive. They’ve been saying it for generations: OTEC is Hawaii’s best long-term hope to end its dependence on imported fuel and  Get Off Oil.

They have the technology figured out. The big hurdle now is funding, and they’re undoubtedly working feverishly on it.

NOAA’s Role

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is the licensing authority for OTEC facilities. A NOAA team visited Hawaii in November 2009 on something of a “scouting trip” to bring members up to speed on what’s happening with OTEC in the Aloha State.

Team leader Kerry Kehoe said then, “If I were a Las Vegas odds maker, I’d say the odds are better than 50 percent that the first OTEC pilot plant will be built in Hawaii – and the first commercial plant, too.”

We followed up our post on Kehoe’s visit with a hope that NOAA wouldn’t regulate OTEC to death, as some have feared. Dr. Luis Vega, director of the National Marine Renewable Energy Center at the University of Hawaii and indefatigable OTEC enthusiast, countered that concern a few weeks later.

We trust NOAA’s intentions mirror those of OTEC developers – to put this technology to work as quickly as possible while paying due regard to environmental concerns that must be addressed as OTEC approaches is long-predicted contribution to replacing fossil fuel for the generation of electricity. The launch of NOAA's new OTEC website is an encouraging step.

Back to Maui

When finally operated at commercial scale, OTEC is expected to be a firm dispatchable power source. That’s what MECO requires, and although Maui is on well on the way to becoming a showcase for wind energy in the state, that technology is not yet capable of 24/7 support of the electric grid. Maybe that’ll happen with a revolution in battery storage technology, but it’s not here yet. (2/12 UPDATE: A new phase of the Kaheawa wind farm on Maui will have a 10-MW battery backup system, so we may have to modify our view about that technology.)

So what are MECO’s options? Observers doubt there’s enough hydro-electric potential to meet the utility’s 50-MW need. That might leave only biofuel with the potential to satisfy MECO’s future RFP.

But that source isn’t without potential problems either. Consider a worst-case scenario involving drought, crop failure, supply chain interruption or any other circumstance that would threaten the biofuel supply. And biofuel isn’t without its environmental impacts.

Beyond interruptions, many believe biofuel is best reserved for the transportation sector. Airlines are going to need a substitute for oil-based fuel, and biofuel is a leading candidate.

All of this amounts to lots of questions and few answers as of now, but we take comfort in knowing “the Universe makes no mistakes.”

That phrase is not an invitation to sit back and let the Universe take over. It’s an invitation to take action and make the future your own.

‘Big Wind’ Hearing Evokes Strong Opposition on Lanai; Residents Decry Major Impacts, Lack of Energy Options

It’s Super Bowl Sunday, so we’re obligated to connect with football, just as we did at another blog last week on Pro Bowl Sunday.

“THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE!!!” yelled Arizona Cardinal Coach Dennis Green four seasons ago after the Chicago Bears stormed back to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

And Lanai residents are who we thought they were, too. Yesterday’s hearing to gather comments on the Hawaii Interisland Renewable Energy Program – dubbed “Big Wind” by promoters – evoked strong opposition, as reported today in the Maui News.

We trust the reporter accurately described their reaction, and we’ll recommend her story for the details. But one comment jumped out – the complaint by Lanai resident Beverly Zigmond that no energy alternatives are listed in the project’s documentation. “The choices are big wind or nothing,” she said.

For the Record

Castle & Cooke was presented a few years ago with a plan to revolutionize Lanai’s energy use by using an ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) plant anchored a few miles off shore that would free the island completely from its virtually total dependence on fossil fuel.

The plant would have produced more than enough power to satisfy the island’s demand for electricity, as well as abundant quantities of potable water (always an island concern) and hydrogen. Electric- and hydrogen-powered vehicles would have provided transportation, and the island likely would have become a magnet for green energy enthusiasts around the world; visitors would have found two (currently money-losing) world-class resorts waiting to accommodate them.

For whatever reason, the company didn’t bite at the opportunity to facilitate the development of Hawaii’s first commercial scale OTEC plant, and the acclaim to be enjoyed for that distinction will be someone else’s legacy.

The point of today’s post is to suggest that there are indeed alternatives to wind power in Hawaii, and that goes for each of the islands. As we noted here not long ago, the state undoubtedly needs all renewable technologies to reach its aggressive clean energy goals. Wind, geothermal, solar, biomass, waste and ocean energy all have their place.

As of now, it seems Lanai and Molokai residents are unconvinced that their islands are the place for Big Wind.

OTEC Likely To Have Its Moment in ‘Big Wind’ Hearings

Public meetings important to Hawaii’s energy future will be held this week in Maui and Honolulu counties to explain the “Big Wind” concept and hear what residents of Oahu, Maui, Lanai and Molokai think about it.

The State Energy Office is supporting a wind energy plan to build two 200-megawatt wind farms, one each on Molokai and Lanai, and undersea cables to transit electrical energy to Oahu and within Maui County (as shown in the above diagram that accompanies today’s story on the meetings in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser).

The State sees Big Wind as an important component of the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative and its goal of relying on renewable energy for 40 percent of Hawaii’s power needs by 2030. But Big Wind’s eventual success is by no means certain.

The Friends of Lanai group objects to the impact Castle & Cooke’s proposed 170-turbine wind farm would have on the island’s open space, which the Friends say would forever be altered. Molokai residents have repeatedly resisted efforts to change the nature of the “most Hawaiian island.”

The ‘Capacity Factor’ Factor

Life of the Land, which describes itself as “a Hawaii-based Environmental and Community Action Group,” believes ocean thermal energy conversion is a better option than Big Wind. LOL’s executive director says OTEC would cost less than Big Wind’s estimated $3 billion price tag.

Few media stories here mention “capacity factor” in their energy coverage, so we’ll mention it here in the hope reporters will soon acquaint themselves with the concept.

An argument can and undoubtedly will be made at this week’s hearings that on average, wind farms actually deliver only about 25 percent of their installed generation capacity to the grid due to wind variability, from full-on gale strength to dead calm.

Big Wind’s capacity factor also is likely to be around 25 percent, so on average, the Lanai and Molokai wind farms would export around 100 megawatts of electrical energy at a cost of $3 billion.

Life of the Land and many others (including this blog) believe Hawaii’s energy conversation must eventually take stock of the significant disparity between intermittent energy sources, such as Big Wind, and baseload sources like geothermal energy today and OTEC tomorrow.

Baseload plants have capacity factors approaching 100 percent. They operate around the clock and only reduce their output for planned maintenance and relatively rare unplanned outages.

Bigger Bang for the Buck?

In broad terms, Big Wind would deliver 100 megawatts of power at a cost of $3 billion. The question needs asking: How much power could be produced at the same cost by building more geothermal plants on the Big Island and/or finally taking the OTEC leap to develop the first and subsequent ocean thermal plants?

We’ve already suggested here that maybe Hawaii has to make a choice between technologies based on what we can afford. Others discount the need for such a choice and believe all energy sources must be up for discussion.

They undoubtedly have a point – that at no step along the path to energy independence can Hawaii afford to choose between green technologies. If Hawaii is to actually end all fossil fuel use within a few decades, we’ll have to tap all existing sources and develop new ones.

We don’t believe we can reach the goals set by HCEI and President Obama in his recent State of the Union speech with existing on-line technologies. New ones like OTEC, wave energy and hydrogen power and others will be required.

This week’s meetings will afford the opportunity to go beyond Big Wind to other big ideas – including, we anticipate, OTEC.

President’s Home State Can Provide Clean Energy Path; 80% Green Power Goal Will Need Ocean Component

“Race to the top” may be a national education program, but for truly audacious goal-setting, look no further than the President’s national goal to achieve 80-percent reliance on clean energy by 2035!

Until now, the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative’s goal of achieving 40 percent from renewable energy by 2030 had seemed aggressive. As of this evening, it's passé.

Hawaii’s favorite son has seen that goal and upped the bet by going all in! Here’s how he stated his renewable energy challenge in his State of the Union Address and how he plans to pay for it:

That's what Americans have done for over 200 years: reinvented ourselves. And to spur on more success stories like the Allen Brothers, we've begun to reinvent our energy policy. We're not just handing out money. We're issuing a challenge. We're telling America's scientists and engineers that if they assemble teams of the best minds in their fields, and focus on the hardest problems in clean energy, we'll fund the Apollo projects of our time.

At the California Institute of Technology, they're developing a way to turn sunlight and water into fuel for our cars. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, they're using supercomputers to get a lot more power out of our nuclear facilities. With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.

We need to get behind this innovation. And to help pay for it, I'm asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies. I don't know if – I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing just fine on their own. So instead of subsidizing yesterday's energy, let's invest in tomorrow's.

Now, clean energy breakthroughs will only translate into clean energy jobs if businesses know there will be a market for what they're selling. So tonight, I challenge you to join me in setting a new goal: By 2035, 80 percent of America's electricity will come from clean energy sources.

Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all -- and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen.

Back to the Sea

Mr. Obama’s far-reaching goal surely fires the imagination and fosters hope for a nation that can function without reliance on climate-damaging, economy-damaging oil.

Hawaii is poised to fire the nation’s collective imagination with the innovations we can initiate and achieve here in the Aloha State. The President didn’t mention it, but ocean thermal energy conversion – OTEC, what we’re calling Big Ocean – can be a 21st century technological breakthrough to change the energy game.

Can we truly achieve Mr. Obama’s 80-percent goal without a game-changing energy breakthrough? Can it happen only with intermittent wind and solar farms backed up with batteries, biofuels and nuclear power? Can his quantum leap be achieved without tapping the inexhaustible stores of solar energy in the world’s oceans?

For the sake of argument, we’ll suggest it can’t happen with existing technologies. It will take breakthroughs in one particular technology – ocean energy technology – and if it’s to happen, there’s no better place for it to begin than Hawaii.

Mr. President, look to your home state. Support efforts to fund development of a pilot plant in Hawaii to demonstrate OTEC’s viability to replace oil-fired electrical generation in Hawaii within a decade!

By the time the nation reaches your 80-percent goal, let’s ensure that Hawaii will already be solidly locked in at 100 percent!

Big Wind vs Big Ocean: Should Hawaii Make a Choice?

In a perfect world, every possible renewable energy technology would be available and used to the maximum extent practicable here. But even in our Hawaiian paradise, there are limits.

The Japanese plan to capture solar power in earth orbit and microwave it to ground stations. Bingo – an inexhaustible energy supply. But then there’s that word “practicable.”

Even if the technology were available today, would it pencil out? Would it be worth a massive infrastructure investment in Hawaii to capture solar energy in space and microwave it to islands that already have an abundant supply of solar energy?

Hawaii is ideally situated to tap into terrestrial solar energy – in the strong and steady winds that blow across the islands, in the tropical ocean that surrounds them and in the heat below the surface of some islands in the form of geothermal energy. Most would agree that using those sources is preferable than a much more expensive space-based solar system.

Asking THE Question

Let’s continue with another potential choice – between Big Wind, which is what they’re calling the plan to build two 200-megawatt windfarms on Lanai and Molokai, and what we’ll call Big Ocean, the potential to harvest even more energy from ocean thermal energy conversion. Should Hawaii build one and not the other?

Some are already asking questions and expressing opinions about Big Wind. A group called Friends of Lanai had a commentary at the online journalism site Civil Beat today. In short, the Friends don’t want 170 wind turbines, each over 400 feet tall, erected on their island to supply Oahu with electricity via undersea cables. The sacrifice is too great, they say.

They’re concerned about the cost to build the windfarms on the two islands and to construct and lay cables (including redundancy cables) between the islands and Oahu. A billion here, a billion there, and before you know it, you have a $3 billion price tag for Big Wind that could grow larger.

Is Big Ocean Competitive?

Some argue that much more power could be generated at less cost using OTEC plants floating free or moored in deep water a few miles off the islands, with much shorter and shallower cables connected to power grids.

Advocates (including Hawaii Energy Options for the past three years) argue that OTEC’s environmental impact to generate a like amount of electrical power as wind is much less than hundreds of towering structures on land.

But their home-run argument is that OTEC is baseload power, capable of operating continuously without regard to variables in wind strength and sunshine. To advocates, the argument comes down to baseload OTEC vs intermittent wind and solar farms, with baseload far superior.

Build Now, or Later?

But then there’s that other key factor. Wind power is proven technology after decades of trial and error, including right here on Oahu’s North Shore. Hawaiian Electric Industries built early generations of wind turbines in the hills near Kahuku, and those failures helped lead to successes in the current generation of turbines.

OTEC is still on the drawing boards after being touted as the energy game changer for decades, without one commercial-sized plant in service anywhere in the world. At first glance, there’s no competition; wind wins.

But Hawaii’s energy future reasonably shouldn’t be based on first glances. The technology we choose will be expensive – we’ll all pay for it one way or the other in our electric bills – and will be with us for generations.

Do we embrace Big Wind now, with its environmental impacts, intermittency and big cable costs, or do we hold off to develop the will and the investors to build that first OTEC plant to prove or disprove its worth, once and for all?

Some argue we can’t delay Big Wind if the state is to meet its Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative green energy goals. Big Ocean advocates say it would be wrong to rush to Big Wind and waste the opportunity to perfect a technology that could revolutionize energy production in the 21st century.

Big Wind vs Big Ocean. Stated that way, it does look like a competition of technologies. With only so much ability to financially support the green energy transformation of Hawaii, perhaps it should in fact come down to one or the other.