Coal Power, Energy, Politics and Economic Prosperity, Environmental

Hawaii: A Glimpse Into the future of the “Green New Deal” aka “Inflation Reduction Act”, Here is an Update

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This post was written in June 2020 when Hawaii Electric announced they would shut down the Barber’s Point Coal Plant. I thought this would be a very good experiment of applying the “Green New Deal”. Why? Because Hawaii is an outstanding location for sunshine and wind, so wind and solar have the natural geography and climate to succeed and do well in Hawaii. Another reason this is an ideal experiment is, Hawaii is an Energy Island with no ties to the U.S. Grid. Therefore, the production costs and reliability are the result of the production capacity that has been installed (or shut down). Here is the update:

Huge Kapolei Battery Plant Replaces Coal at Hawaii Electric

That is the headline of the Canary Media in December 2023. Here is the background as reported in the American Civil Engineering Society article, by Jay Landers:

“Among U.S. states, Hawaii has some of the most ambitious mandates for shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources to generate electricity. To achieve these mandates, the state aims to rely heavily on battery energy storage systems to provide backup power when intermittent sources such as solar and wind are insufficient or unavailable. On the Hawaiian island of Oahu, a large and sophisticated battery energy storage system recently came online, marking a key point in the state’s efforts to move toward a future of 100% renewable energy.

December startup

Situated on 8 acres of industrial land, the Kapolei Energy Storage project comprises 158 Tesla Megapack 2 XL lithium iron phosphate batteries, which are about the size of a shipping container. All told, the KES project provides 185 MW of total rated power capacity, or the largest possible instantaneous discharge, and 565 MWh of energy capacity, or the maximum amount of stored energy.

The system can meet 17% of Oahu’s electricity demand for three hours at peak load or six hours at half load, Brandon Keefe, the executive chair of Plus Power — the company that developed the project — told USA Today. Plus Power “develops, owns, and operates standalone battery energy storage systems that provide capacity, energy, and ancillary services, enabling the rapid integration of renewable generation resources,” according to the company’s Jan. 11 news releaseannouncing the start of operations at its KES facility.

As a percentage of the electricity system that it serves, the KES project is larger than any other battery storage project in the world, Colton Ching, the senior vice president of planning and technology for the Hawaiian Electric Co. Inc., told USA Today. Hawaiian Electric serves 95% of Hawaii’s 1.4 million residents on the islands of Hawaii, Lanai, Maui, Molokai, and Oahu. Each of the islands has its own independent power grid. On Oahu, Hawaiian Electric serves approximately 307,000 customers.”

Back to Dick Storm Article, June 2020:

Hawaii is a model of the impact of applying carbon free electricity generation policies before storage technology catches up. “Green Policies” do not necessarily result in “Green Power” as I will close with the actual power generation in real time.  As an engineer specializing in efficient and clean coal power generation for five decades, whenever a coal plant shutdown is in the news, it catches my attention. So, when I read about the plans to shut down the 180 MW, AES Barbers Point Coal Plant near Honolulu, it caught my eye.

Oahu’s Cheapest Source Of Power Is About To Go Away

The title of the article in the Honolulu newspaper sums it up nicely: “Our Cheapest Power Is About to Go Away……. In 2016, HECO paid AES Hawaii an average of 5 cents per kilowatt hour. During the same period, wind was about 20 cents per kilowatt hour, solar about 21 to 23 cents.”

Hawaii is a perfect laboratory to show the effect of implementing extreme green policies on electric generation. Why? Because as islands, they are not connected to the US Grid. Therefore, the policies as implemented will create a fairly swift impact on electricity prices. According to the EIA, the highest retail electricity price in the U.S.A.:  Hawaii at $0.3099/kWh. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a

Digging a little deeper the plans for the future are for 52% Renewables by 2021 and 100% Renewables by 2045. https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/clean-energy-hawaii/integrated-grid-planning/power-supply-improvement-plan

As the Democrats in congress push for the new Green Deal, Hawaii offers an example of the adverse impact on electricity prices. Later, when Barbers Point is shut down, reliability could also become an issue. 

If you are interested in the fuel mix for generation on the island of Oahu, here is a link for the real time power generation. https://www.islandpulse.org  As this is written (0700 3/24/2020), I checked and 86% of the power was Fossil Fuels and of the 14% Renewables, they include 9% from the thermal waste to energy facility, 5% wind and because it was early morning, 0% solar.

I have always advocated a “Balanced Portfolio of Generation”. A plan to include LNG, Coal, Renewables, Oil and Waste to Energy would have been wiser, in my opinion.

Summary and Conclusions

Here is the update on electric rates by the EIA, Residential rate, $0.416/kWh. Yes, Hawaii Electric remains the highest cost electricity provider in the U.S. This did not need to happen to Hawaii and there is time to stop the Climate Policy madness for the rest of the states.

Many of my knowledgeable friends have suggested that if the U.S. was to try to apply 100% Renewables, it would be a very good idea to first apply this to one electric supply system, rather than force green energy on all of the states. Well, here we have a completed experiment. Hawaii has passed the test of being the first experiment of applying the “Green New Deal”. Thank you Hawaii Electric for providing this outstanding example of applied renewables. My state of S.C. and also neighboring states are planning similar renewables plus battery storage. Your experiences are helpful.

Dick Storm, March 20, 2024

References

  1. Dick Storm Blog post, Hawaii, Green New Deal, A Glimpse into the Future, June 3, 2020: https://dickstormprobizblog.org/2020/06/03/hawaii-a-gimpse-into-the-future-of-the-green-new-deal/
  2. Huge Kapolei Battery Plant Replaces Coal at Hawaii Electric, Canary Media: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/energy-storage/a-huge-battery-has-replaced-hawaiis-last-coal-plant
  3. ASCE Report/update on the 180 MW Battery storage at Hawaii Electric, March 12, 2024: https://www.asce.org/publications-and-news/civil-engineering-source/civil-engineering-magazine/article/2024/03/large-battery-energy-storage-system-now-operating-in-hawaii
  4. EIA List of U.S. Electricity Rates, December 2023, Hawaii Top Rate for Residential $0.416/kWh: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a
  5. “Biden Officials Mull Quicker Death of Coal Plants”, Physics.org News, March 19, 2024: https://phys.org/news/2024-03-biden-mull-quicker-death-coal.html

5 thoughts on “Hawaii: A Glimpse Into the future of the “Green New Deal” aka “Inflation Reduction Act”, Here is an Update”

  1. Just after Lock Down lifted we went to Kauai for a week and took the Tubing Adventure. Our guide was in her mid 20s and had a degree in Sociology but there’s not enough work for that on the Islands so she’s a guide, this is an issue I see with the Hawaiian economy but for another conversation another day. She kept talking of their 100% Renewable target with pride and touted their new Bio-fuel program. There is an African Tree prolific on the Island that they call invasive and not native, only 2 grasses are native to the Island I’m told so isn’t everything not native and considered invasive? They have built a plant to burn these trees and convert them to electricity and here’s the kicker, when those invasive trees are all gone, they will plant something else to burn, the irony here is lost but I engaged her none the less. I pointed to my home, California, which had just decided to build a tree burning plant to rid ourselves of the underbrush and debris that causes our massive fires and won’t pay for themselves but will off-set costs, this I am in favor of but this gave me the opportunity to point out that California had the second highest Electricity rats in the Nation, second to Hawaii. The look one her face at that moment was priceless, she had no clue to that and Hawaii has an economy based on Tourism and not much else, so there’s not a lot of opportunity outside of it, at least to my observation. To my knowledge there is no working model in the World showing the Green Thing working, delivering as promised. There is an Island near Spain that has it all, Wind Solar and Hydro pumping to resivore then letting it run turbines when needed and a huge cable attached to the mainland. This is forced on us all and there’s no solid model to refer too? We should not have this much money out there for this, it runs mostly on ideology not science.

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