Local 1: Electric generation in Oahu (v1.0)

The story of electricity generation in Oahu and more broadly Hawaii is very encouraging. 

Hawaiian Electric provides electricity for 95% of residents of the State of Hawaii on Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lanai and Hawaii Island. Each island has its own grid and power generation. The renewable energy percentage is 28.2% on Oahu and the renewable peak was 72.7% on July 23, 2022, based on generation. On Hawaii island, the renewable energy percentage is 47.9%. On Maui County, the renewable energy percentage is 35.6%.  

In Oahu, the number of customers is about 307,000. The company and its independent partners generate 1358 MW using oil, 130 MW using diesel, and 50 MW using biodiesel, 68 MW using waste to energy, and 8 MW using biofuel., for a total production of 1614.5 MW. The last coal plant was recently shut down on Oahu. 

Also in Oahu, 987.5 MW is additionally generated from renewables primarily by customer sited renewables like rooftop solar or independent partners primarily using wind and solar farms. In addition, 148 MW of additional renewables are under development. 

A big story in Oahu is energy storage. The island has 865 MWH of energy storage, much of it using cutting edge battery technology. In addition, 701 MWH of additional storage is under development. The latest storage technology can kick in in milliseconds as power demand fluctuates and they act as a buffer to ride out fluctuations in demand. 

The state of Hawaii requires that 100% of the electricity should be generated from renewable sources by 2045 and as you can see, good progress is being made towards that goal. A recent headline shows the trend. "Hawaii has replaced its last coal plant (generating 180 MW) with the most advanced grid-scale battery in the world. The facility has 564 MWH of storage. The project will help the state’s electric power transition from coal and oil to solar and wind. Plus Power (a partner of Hawaiian Electric) Kapolei battery is located on the southwest side of Oahu, near Honolulu, and it uses 158 Tesla Megapack 2 XL lithium iron phosphate batteries (costs 1.39M each and stores 3.9 MWH each). A spokesman Keefe said “It’s the first time a battery has been used by a major utility to balance the grid: providing fast frequency response, synthetic inertia, and black start. This project is a postcard from the future — batteries will soon be providing these services, at scale, on the mainland,” Keefe added.  

But it is not all rosy. Oahu has seen a wave of recent power outages. A couple of weeks ago the whole island was put on alert after a power plant went offline amid a storm causing rolling blackouts. Hawaii’s electric costs also are 62% higher than the national average and double the global average (primarily due to historical reliance on petroleum for energy). How do we make this transition to clean energy and keep costs in check? “From an energy policy standpoint there are three R’s, it’s reliability - make sure the lights go on when I flip the switch,” Sen. Wakai said. “Second is reasonable - the prices in Hawaii are three times the national average we pay 42 cents per kilowatt hour in Hawaii, on the mainland it’s like 12-14 cents. The third thing is renewable - we saw we don’t have reliability with intermittent power outages because we’re at the mercy of mother nature.” Sen. Wakai says. "We can get there without things like rolling power outages. I think we have to manage our pace a little bit better. What we saw two weeks ago with rain and cloud cover shows the shortcomings of intermittent renewable power. Solar and batteries are important, but they cannot be relied on 100 percent of the time, which we saw with the blackouts,”