Hawaii Gas has brought the first containerized shipment of liquefied natural gas to Hawaii, marking the start of a process that could eventually lead to lower energy costs for the state.
Crews from Hawaii Gas on Monday began unloading the refrigerated fuel from a shipping container at Honolulu Harbor using special equipment to convert the LNG back into its gaseous state for use by the utility’s customers.
The shipment is part of a Hawaii Gas program to provide a backup to the synthetic natural gas it makes from an oil derivative at its plant in Campbell Industrial Park. The insulated 40-foot tank shipped from a supplier in California contained 10,000 gallons of supercooled LNG, or the equivalent of about 12 percent of what Hawaii Gas produces per day in synthetic natural gas. Hawaii Gas officials said they expect to ship in one container every two to four weeks.
The work crews manned a mobile "regasification" unit to warm up the fuel, which is shipped at a temperature of minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit to keep it in its liquid state. LNG takes up about one-six hundredth the volume of natural gas in its gaseous state, making it easier to transport over long distances by ship, rail car or tanker truck. The mobile regasification unit can process about 1,000 gallons of LNG an hour.
The container and regasification equipment were unloaded from a container ship and hauled by truck to the company’s facility at Pier 38. Once regasified, the LNG is injected directly into the Hawaii Gas pipeline.
The state Public Utilities Commission on March 6 approved Hawaii Gas to bring LNG to Hawaii using three shipping containers. Company officials said they plan to seek PUC permission later this year to increase the number of containers.
"During this year we are assembling plans and communicating with the commission about how we might scale this process up to meet a greater portion of our daily demand if not all of it," said Joe Boivin, senior vice president for business development and corporate affairs at Hawaii Gas.
Hawaii Gas’ long-range plans call for working with Hawaiian Electric Co. and others to bring in large amounts of LNG in specialized ships that could be used for power generation. Bringing in LNG on that scale could cut electricity costs by 30 to 50 percent when compared with burning oil to generate power, Boivin said, quoting a report done by the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute.
Hawaiian Electric Co. is also pursuing a plan to bring liquefied natural gas to Oahu in shipping containers while pressing ahead with a longer-term strategy to import bulk supplies of LNG to replace the fuel oil it burns in many of its power plants.
HECO’s LNG plan is in line with the Abercrombie administration’s position that LNG can be used as a "bridge" fuel while the state continues its transition to renewable energy sources, according to HECO officials.
HECO and Hawaii Gas have formed a consortium to coordinate bulk shipments of LNG to Hawaii. Pearl Harbor has emerged as the leading location for an LNG import terminal, although no final decision has been made.
Environmental groups, such as the Blue Planet Foundation and the national office of the Sierra Club, have opposed shipping liquified natural gas to Hawaii, saying it runs contrary to the state’s push to reduce its dependence on fossil fuel. They argue that utilities should put their efforts into increasing renewable energy use rather than looking for cheaper fossil fuels.
