Maui faces uncertainty over future of its power grid | News, Sports, Jobs

The Kuihelani Solar-plus-Storage facility has begun producing electricity for Maui. The Kūihelani Solar-plus-Storage facility, located on 450 acres in central Maui between the Kūihelani Highway and the Maui Veterans Highway, produces 60 MW of renewable energy, supported by a 240 MWh lithium-ion battery storage system, to meet 15% of Maui’s energy needs. Photo courtesy of AES

By MARCEL HONORE

Honolulu Civil Beat via AP

Hawaiian Electric Co. officials say they hope to have four new renewable energy projects up and running on Maui by 2028 as part of the island’s difficult transition from fossil fuels to a grid powered by wind, solar and other clean energy sources. — The proposed projects in Maalaea, Pulehunui and Wanea remain in the early stages and still have key hurdles to overcome, HECO officials told community members at a PUC-sponsored meeting on Maui last week. They still need to gain community support, reach successful contract negotiations with developers and ultimately win approval from the Public Utilities Commission. — HECO’s briefing on the island’s power grid comes as Maui leaders have been separately considering how aggressively they should pursue putting utility lines underground to help avoid sparking future wildfires. The effort would be expensive but has won vocal support from many Maui residents after last year’s deadly Lahaina wildfire. But so far, there’s no plan. “The clean energy projects, meanwhile, are intended to replace four previously planned renewable energy proposals on Maui that have fallen through over the past five years due to legal challenges, community resistance and rising costs related to the Covid-19 pandemic.” “The new renewable projects will be critical to keeping power flowing reliably on Maui’s power grid beyond 2028, when the island faces the inevitable loss of about 88 megawatts of steady, diesel- and oil-fired power at its power plants in Maalaea and Kahului, according to Mike DeCaprio, HECO’s vice president of power delivery.” “Currently, power generation on Maui is stable,” DeCaprio told PUC attendees Tuesday. “However, by 2028, “there will be a lot of risk and a lot of challenges if certain things are not done” to replace this lost energy, which constitutes about 35% of all so-called “reliable” energy generated on Maui,” DeCaprio added. “HECO has a plan, “but it will be a challenge” The state’s largest power provider has until 2028 to close its 38-megawatt Kahului power plant in compliance with state environmental standards. It also could lose 50 megawatts of capacity at its diesel-fired Maalaea plant in the coming years after its Japanese parts supplier informed HECO that the engines in it were outdated and that it would no longer manufacture the necessary replacement parts. The newly launched 60-megawatt Kuihelani solar project in Maalaea will help replace what was lost, but HECO still needs more projects to ensure Maui’s reliable clean-energy transition, HECO officials said. They hope to eventually add an additional 40 megawatts of solar panels and battery storage at the Kuihelani facility, as well as extend the existing 30-megawatt Kaheawa wind project in Maalaea by another 20 years, according to Rebecca Dayhuff Matsushima, HECO vice president of resource acquisition. “HECO is also looking to build a 20-megawatt solar and battery storage facility in Pulehunui and a 40-megawatt biofuel facility in Waena,” Matsushima said Tuesday. “A fifth project, a 20-megawatt solar and battery storage facility that was part of a new batch of renewable projects and was to be built in Kihei, has been canceled due to “website control issues” she added.

Pushing for more underground lines – Maui political leaders also grappled last week with whether to expand requirements for burying power lines and other utilities underground islandwide, following deadly wildfires that devastated much of Lahaina last year. – Specifically, they discussed whether to advance House Bill 90, which would require power lines to be buried underground in most new developments on Maui, including residential, agricultural and rural areas. – Many Maui community members expressed strong support for burying those lines underground after the tragedy in Lahaina. However, the bill does not require power lines to be buried in the fire zone as part of the recovery effort. –“I wanted Lahaina to make the decision for Lahaina” said Council member Gabe Johnson, who introduced the bill, during Tuesday’s committee meeting. “If Lahaina wants it and we have the political will to do it, I fully support doing it that way.”– HECO officials at the meeting said that burying power lines underground typically costs five to 10 times more than erecting them overhead. The typical cost of building overhead power lines per mile is $500,000 to $1 million, they said. – The company also estimated that installing all the remaining distribution lines that have not yet been built on Maui underground would cost $7 billion. That cost would largely be borne by developers, who would then pass it on to property owners and tenants, HECO officials said at the meeting. – Putting the lines underground as part of the Lahaina redevelopment would also take longer than putting them overhead, HECO officials said. They did not say how much longer. Regardless of whether any of the new lines are underground, the company “harden” lines along major evacuation routes to avoid a repeat of what happened in Lahaina, they added. Still, Johnson said putting power lines underground is necessary to better protect Maui residents from another wildfire disaster.“We want our cities to be resilient. Underground power lines, fuel outages, taxes on 8-foot Guinea grass roads… Maui is bone dry, the summer heat is starting and we’re approaching a year since the fire.” he said in a follow-up interview. “The committee took no action on Bill 90 at the meeting. It is unclear whether its members will reconsider the proposal in the future.”

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