Event generates hope, reveals obstacles to implementing renewables
by Rob ParsonsSeptember 17 , 2009
Maui County Energy Expo |
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"What
we have now is not a plan; it is a series of recommendations. We need a
master plan." - Wayne Axelson, Chair, Maui County Energy Alliance
Working Group-3 (Energy and Transportation Infrastructure)
The
2009 Maui County Energy Expo—"Our Energy Future; Concept to
Reality"—convened last week. The event, which brought together experts
in various fields, highlighted recommendations gleaned over the past 16
months by five volunteer working groups of the Maui County Energy
Alliance. Ironically, the venue was the same as the first Energy Expo,
held in November 2007: the Grand Wailea Hotel & Spa, second-largest
energy consumer of all Maui Electric Company's customers.
Nevertheless,
an enthusiastic audience filled the resort's Haleakala Ballroom to hear
Mayor Tavares and her invitees present both the promise and the
pitfalls of Hawaii's renewable energy future. Despite a somewhat
self-congratulatory tone, there was enough critical data and analysis
provided to allow the discerning listener to take home valuable
insights on how to reboot our local energy economy and electrical grid.
Democratizing power
Ted
Liu, Director of the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic
Development, and Tourism, offered introductory comments, emphasizing
Maui's pivotal role in Hawaii's energy future. He noted that national
press has recognized Hawaii as a leading incubator of renewable energy,
that Maui is rich in renewable resources, even geothermal, and that
"Maui is a critical linchpin of the effort" to develop a new electrical
grid distribution system.
"We are entering an era of
unprecedented opportunity," said Liu, "and unprecedented alliance." He
touched upon the plan to tap into as much as 300-400 megawatts of wind
power on Lanai and Molokai, and to transmit that energy to Oahu via an
inter-island undersea cable.
But keynote speaker Henk Rogers of
Blue Planet Foundation followed Liu's remarks by saying that Gov.
Lingle's Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative (HCEI) is heavily dependent on
the concept of the undersea transmission cable. "That choice can only
come with buy-in from the communities," said Rogers. "It cannot be
dictated from Honolulu."
Rogers, who made a fortune developing
and licensing the video game Tetris, shared the most interesting
presentation of the two-day conference. He used the "show and tell"
image capabilities of PowerPoint more effectively than all the other
text-heavy offerings.
Rogers said the state had studies and a
plan as far back as 1974 to get us off fossil fuel by 2010. He even
cited a letter to the editor from a 1902 edition of the Honolulu
Advertiser, suggesting that Oahu's strong Pali winds could provide
cheap electrical power. "We simply forgot the importance of what was
before us," he said. "Other crises commanded the public's attention."
Rogers
has set a goal—actually his stated "mission in life" after a
heart-attack wake-up call—of ending carbon-based fuels within a decade.
This is even more ambitious than the 70 percent renewable energy by
2030 goal of the Governor's HCEI.
Rogers foresees a new role for
utilities: power distributors, not power producers. He likened an
emerging "smart grid" to the Internet, which has the ability to both
send and receive information. He compared the current electrical
delivery system to televisions in the 1950s—only a few stations
available, and for limited hours.
"Democratizing our power in
Hawaii," said Rogers, "will involve putting power in our democracy." He
called for transformative change, including energy storage systems for
when electricity isn't flowing, and new paradigms for transportation.
Ultimately, he said, we are striving for, "Not just sustainability, but
survivability. Blue Planet Foundation wants to bring together the best
of us and catalyze revolutionary change."
Giving our leaders a blueprint
Five
volunteer working groups were invited to join the Maui County Energy
Alliance beginning in May 2008, and to offer recommendations in these
categories: Renewable Resource Development; Green Workforce
Development; Energy and Transportation Infrastructure; Energy
Efficiency and Conservation; and Greenhouse Gases and Carbon Emissions.
County
Energy Commissioner Victor Reyes introduced the panel of working group
chairs, noting that "energy efficiency and conservation is a virtual
power plant." That would turn out to be a recurring theme in the
priority recommendations of the five groups.
A call was made
for energy efficiency audits for all County facilities, and for the
County to set an example with installation of on-site renewables
wherever possible. Suggestions ranged from simple things like
carpooling to adding more solar photovoltaic and improving County water
and wastewater infrastructure (as pumping requires large energy
inputs).
While the laundry list of recommendations is
impressive (see a full 128-page report at
mauicounty.gov/index.aspx?nid=1439), one audience questioner said the
entire process had a "top-down" feel, and wished that there could have
been more community interaction and meetings in places "such as Hana
and Haiku, not just at the Grand Wailea."
But panelists
defended the process, and Planning Commissioner Jonathan Starr
cautioned, "Don't diminish the value of what's happening here." Added
Maui Economic Opportunity head Sandy Baz, "We need to give our leaders
a blueprint and initiative."
The big bottleneck: Public Utilities Commission
One
panel discussion, Regulatory Opportunities and Challenges, allowed a
glimpse into the enormity of the policy-making challenges faced by the
Public Utilities Commission. Chair Carlito Caliboso elaborated upon a
few of the many dockets before the PUC, some with as many as 20
intervening parties. He noted, among others, the feed-in tariffs docket
(an incentive mechanism to set above-market rates for utilities to
purchase renewables from independent producers), de-coupling (adjusting
a utility's profit-making so it's not simply tied to more energy
production) and smart grid (integrating digital capabilities into a
two-way electrical network). "The list is too long," said Caliboso.
Given
the complexity of each of the dockets—and the fact that the three-man
PUC also reviews matters regarding telecommunications, water and
transportation utilities—it's a wonder they're able to make any
progress at all. Panelist and environmental consultant Carl Freedman
displayed a graph showing that Hawaii is dead last in allocating
regulatory staff for states of equivalent size. And, in this time of
budgetary constraints, it's hard to imagine the PUC getting the
additional staff, resources and funding that might make it more
effective.
Freedman also noted that the Consumer Advocate's
office—which advises the PUC but has sometimes been accused of being
more of a utility advocate than working on behalf of ratepayers—is
similarly understaffed. He said the "new paradigm" for Hawaiian
Electric Company, of being incentivized with cost recovery for a smart
grid, is "a movie that hasn't been made yet. We have no screenplay or
budget."
Mayor Tavares urged moving forward quickly. "We're not
going to wait for a partner to come to us," she said, "we're going to
move ahead." Yet, she cautioned against merely jumping on the "REBW
(renewable energy bandwagon)."
Tavares said she dreams of Maui
becoming a testing site and training ground for renewable energy, a
vision she said is shared by the Maui Economic Development Board. But,
she added, "We're far, far away from reality. We must crawl before we
learn how to walk. We're in the crawling stage." Maui Time Weekly, Rob Parsons
Energy Fast Facts
• The Maui Electric Co. (MECO) generating station at Maalaea burns more than 1 million gallons of petroleum diesel weekly.
•
A 1977 state Senate report showed that Hawaii's 96 percent dependence
on imported oil was costing $500 million yearly. In 2005, two UH
economists estimated that $3 billion was leaving the state to purchase
fossil fuels for electricity and transportation needs. In 2009, the
projected estimate for imported petroleum, gas, coal and ethanol is
$8-9 billion.
• The MECO grid currently demands 210 megawatts daily. That number is projected to rise to 310MW by 2020.
• In 2007, 15.4 percent of MECO's sales were from renewables (wind, solar, hydro and biomass).
• MECO has 443 solar photovoltaic customers, providing a combined 2.94MW of power to the grid.
•
Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar (HC&S) fuels its Puunene mill boilers
by combusting cane fiber (bagasse), coal and waste recycled oil,
selling an average excess of 12MW of energy to MECO. In 2008, HC&S
burned 475,000 tons of bagasse and 95,000 tons of coal.