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Big Wind, interisland cable are last gasp of dying dinosaur 

Credit:  By Mike Bond | Honolulu Star-Advertiser | www.staradvertiser.com 3 July 2012 ~~

Hawaii’s goal of energy independence is growing closer, with the state’s solar installations rising 45 percent in first quarter 2012 over the same period last year, as noted in a recent Star-Advertiser article. In only three months, Hawaii homeowners and businesses installed another 14.8 mega-watts of solar generating capacity.

But though blessed with sunlight, Hawaii lagged far behind the average 85 percent national increase. New Jersey, not known for its sun, added an astounding 174 MW of solar installations – nearly 12 times Hawaii’s increase.

Hawaii’s comparatively slow gain results from Hawaiian Electric Co. limiting solar to 15 percent per circuit, pleading that further increases will destabilize the grid. But this is a false, self-serving argument: On Kauai, not served by HECO, some circuits are at 100 percent solar penetration with no impact on the grid.

With photovoltaic (PV) prices down 30 percent over the last two years, solar is becoming the major solution, particularly in sunny Hawaii. And advances in solar will soon make it competitive with coal and gas – making it far cheaper than obsolete technologies like industrial wind power, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory recently reported.

Soon every home and business in Hawaii will have its own rooftop solar hot water and PV installation, and our state can be the first in the nation to achieve near-total energy independence. The prospect terrifies HECO, however, because when people are generating most of their power from their own rooftops, HECO’s cash cow – the captive consumer – vanishes.

In fact, Hawaii can generate 90 percent of its electricity by 2030 by rooftop solar and other distributed energy resources, states a report released last week, Navigating Hawaii’s Energy Future. But as customers move to rooftop solar, the report adds, fewer large centralized facilities like power plants and transmission and distribution lines are needed. Remaining customers are forced to pay higher and higher rates, driving them also to adopt rooftop PV – the coming “death cycle” of traditional utilities like HECO.

Imagine if every Hawaiian home had its own water source: Why be tied to a municipal water system delivering high-cost chlorinated water from faraway through aging pipes? Yet this is HECO’s business model: a centralized electricity generation system of aged power plants and huge industrial wind factories sending unstable current across long distances through multi-billion-dollar undersea cables.

This is why Gov. Neil Abercrombie, HECO and the Public Utilities Commission are pursuing a $10 billion “boondoggle,” as state Rep. Gil Riviere termed it: “Big Wind” and the Interisland cable.

The stated purpose of this monstrously inefficient and obsolete technology is to link all the islands but Kauai with undersea cables feeding expensive and environmentally destructive geothermal power from the Big Island, and unreliable industrial wind energy from Lanai and Molokai, to Oahu – all to be funded by Hawaii’s already-burdened electricity customers.

The wind project, which would cover 35 square miles of Molokai and Lanai with industrial turbine towers 45 stories high, would provide only 4-6 percent of Oahu’s present electricity needs. But at only 5 percent of this cost, HECO could provide rooftop hot water systems to every home on Oahu, and cut residential electricity demand by 30 percent.

The Big Wind and interisland cable project are the last gasp of a dying dinosaur, a futile attempt to keep an obsolete and expensive utility alive. Instead, HECO should stop limiting rooftop PV, and focus instead on the expansion of a statewide rooftop PV system backed by state-of-the-art firm generation as needed.

And Gov. Abercrombie, instead of serving the interests of HECO, mainland energy companies and investment banks, should support renewable, green solar energy, and contribute to Hawaii’s bright energy future rather than attempting to block it.

Molokai resident Mike Bond is a former CEO of an international energy company, adviser to utility and energy companies, and author of studies on electricity generation and transmission.

Source:  By Mike Bond | Honolulu Star-Advertiser | www.staradvertiser.com 3 July 2012

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

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