Prescription for Hawaii: Renewables, Electric Transportation
Craig Rainey writes:
I just arrived back from a trip to Maui, HI and it continues to amaze me that they have 7000 acres of sugar cane, producing two crops/year, 90% refined into alcohol on island, over half of the cars on the road are flex fuel and they are importing gasoline from off island. Am I the only person out there that thinks that it just might be better for the island to adopt the Brazilian model?
I’ve spent a fair amount of time on Maui, and if I were they, I’d investigate skipping the carbon model altogether. They have an enormous amount of run-of-river hydro, with their huge elevations and incredible rainfall, as well as ocean thermal at their disposal. I believe that a truly fair-minded look at their energy and transportation scene would yield an attractive return on these renewables and electric transportation.
In fact, one of the dozen or so clean energy investment opportunities that I happen to favor is just perfect for the high head conditions that occur when rain falls in the mountains and runs quickly to the sea.
With the excellent sunshine resource, high wind speeds found on some of the islands,high utility rates and potential for using hydro power as the “swing producer” – adjusting for the intermittancy of sun, wind, and power demand, Hawaii could probably go over almost entirely to low carbon energy in a relatively short time without significantly increasing its energy costs. This is without the use of geothermal steam generation which is also available in potentially huge quantities.
For a commercial energy user able to utilise solar generated power on site, Hawaii is already at or below grid parity(compared to purchased electricity)so expect substantial expansion of on roof solar power plants at commercial sites which are even viable for such users without tax rebates and feed in tariffs.
Don’t forget geothermal!! Lots of hot rocks in the Aloha state. Good potential for Single Well Engineered Geothermal Systems (SWEGS). Single well means no fracking– unlike conventional Enhanced Geothermal. Check out http://www.gtherm.net
Exciting stuff.
Thanks Tim. I ask you the same question I asked Nick Cook: “At what price?”
Well Craig, you got me there. SWEGS is still in the development stage so it’s probably hard to say, although their projects in the Salton Sea area in CA seem to be going well. The big cost of geothermal is the drilling and hoping to find hot water. Enhanced Geothermal Systems rely on finding hot rocks and externally supplying the water. However, it still requires two wells as opposed to SWEGS only needing one. Since Hawaii sits on a volcano, I don’t think you’d have to drill too deep before hitting hot water or hot rocks. Drilling costs are also coming down due to new spallation technology. See http://www.potterdrilling.com
For places like Hawaii, and also Bermuda, which was mentioned in the webinar on OTEC, why is no one considering offshore solar. In these island states/countries where land is at a premium, offshore CPV may well give a better return than wind and is likely to have less of a visual impact because it doesn’t need to be 100m plus above the sea.
I don’t have the resources/information to do an economic comparison between these two technologies but from a yield perspective CPV in high insolation areas (e.g. Sahara @ ~3000h sunshine/yr) give about 3 times higer power density than wind farms (based on 5MW turbines). Average power CPV ~18W/m2 wind ~6W/m2
But what’s the cost/Watt? As Dr. Peter Lilienthal, one of our 2GreenEnergy Associates (http://2greenenergy.com/2ge-associates/) is fond of saying, “If you don’t care how much you pay for it, I can find you TONS of clean energy.”
Not all locations are the same. Because of unusual circumstances in Hawaii, it may be that renewable energy systems that would be impractical in most places would work very well in Hawaii.
As for off-shore solar, there may be problems that would make it impractical. Salt spray would dry into the panels thereby reducing their effectiveness, and it could be difficult to get fresh water to wash it off. How serious that problem would be I don’t know. Also, salt water is extremely corrosive. Storms and high waves could be challenging both by causing damage and interfering with the accurate positioning of the system.
Before implementing large off-shore power system, a small pilot project should first be implemented to determine whether the potential problems can be adequately dealt with. If the pilot project is successful (perhaps after making changes to it to deal with problems that it reveals), then it could be incrementally expanded into a large scale system.
Hawaii may well have limited space, and high land values, but you do not need to install solar power on green fields!
In fact, the best places to install solar power are on commercial buildings with a continuous and significant daytime power demand. Even Hawaii has vast areas of rooftop which could be utilised for solar power without going to the additional cost of installing offshore, and further areas of car park etc which might usefully be shaded by solar arrays without using up any additional land.
In Europe, small scale solar installed on homes now costs around $3 per installed watt, and large commercial systems nearer $2 to $2.50 per watt. If the USA could get its permitting system and regulations sorted and standardised, solar power could be installed at similar costs! Unfortunately, most US states seem to have a cumbersome and expensive administrative process associated with solar power.
In the UK there is no need to obtain planning permission to install a solar array unless your home is a historic building, and no need to get the power company’s permission for any array smaller than 3.6 kW. Above this size, it is just a case of confirming with the power company that the grid connection point you propose is able to take the load. Installers are registered, and are required to have appropriate training and are occasionally inspected.
With an installed cost of $2.50 per kWh and assuming 2000 full load hours per annum, the levelised cost of electricity from solar arrays would I expect be between $0.10 and $0.12 per kWh including financing costs which I understand is considerably below the cost of power to consumers in Hawaii.
This is the perfect solution! Come on Craig – you know about this…………