What’s in the wind

It may seem as if the wind has died down and everyone is letting the sun shine, where alternative resources are concerned. The reality, said Mark Glick, is that wind had a massive head start with large utility-scale projects when Hawaii began assembling its clean-energy portfolio, and now solar energy has caught up.

"The thing that we find very interesting is there’s a true diversity of the renewable resources — it’s almost even," said Glick, administrator of the Hawaii State Energy Office. "You have almost evenly wind, solar, biomass and geothermal."

Even if the green-energy excitement has tilted toward solar — and even geothermal is getting more attention in campaign-season discussions — wind energy is still on the landscape, its critics watching it carefully. The visual impact of wind turbines has caused enough of a protest in communities where they’ve been built or proposed that some companies are pursuing other avenues.

For example, First Wind still has its turbine projects on Maui and elsewhere, but its latest Hawaii push is for a utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) project.

And Makani, a company owned by Google, is testing a technology at Parker Ranch in Waimea, one employing a kite-type of turbine that generates its power from on high, on a 1,000-foot tether (see story, Page E4).

Where wind energy will go in the coming years still remains an open question.

There are about a dozen small-scale wind projects still on dockets before the state Public Utilities Commission, but the essential component that is still lacking is the approval of an undersea cable link between Oahu and neighbor islands.

Maui is where First Wind, an energy company with 21 wind projects nationally, already has two large turbine arrays: the Kaheawa projects, with generating capacities of 30 and 21 megawatts (MW). Its other two Hawaii projects are on Oahu, the 30-MW Kahuku Wind installation and the 69-MW Kawailoa Wind turbines.

Paul Gaynor, the Boston-based company’s chief executive officer, was in town recently. The First Wind portfolio includes solar projects and plans, such as a 20-MW solar farm proposed on Castle & Cooke Hawaii Inc. land near Mililani. Gaynor acknowledged concerns that approvals by the Public Utilities Commission and other delays may pose problems with financing, given that federal tax credits are due to lapse in 2016.

Although solar now seems to be eclipsing wind in Hawaii, Gaynor said, that wasn’t the case in 2008, when the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, an agreement between the state and the federal Department of Energy, was first inked. This agreement set goals that by 2030, Hawaii would cut its use of fossil fuels by 70 percent, 30 percent achieved through energy efficiency, 40 percent by increasing generation using renewable sources.

"Back in that time, really, wind was the most cost-effective generation source out there so that’s where naturally we gravitated to: Where in Hawaii does wind work?" Gaynor recalled.

"We and other companies have made a lot of strides in Hawaii, building as much wind as we can," he added. "The Lanai stuff, the Molokai stuff, there’s a lot of wind there, but they have their own challenges."

Those challenges primarily arose from community pushback on the long-range plans for wind generation on Molokai and Lanai. Maui County as a whole boasts excellent wind supply, but the demand for that energy is on Oahu.

In 2010, the federal DOE announced plans to prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement for the wind-power phase of what was called the Hawaii Interisland Renewable Energy Program, which involved the planning of an undersea cable to serve as the Maui-to-Oahu conduit.

The scope of that EIS was reworked after community meetings the following year. At those meetings, residents, especially on the neighbor islands, expressed opposition to the cable based on a range of concerns about cultural and environmental disruptions.

Federal authorities decided to start over with a new, broader process to analyze energy-efficiency measures and the full spectrum of potential green energy technologies. The result was renamed the Hawaii Clean Energy Programmatic EIS, a draft of which was published in April.

The change in direction includes a reworking of the interisland cable concept, no longer envisioned as a one-way conduit to Oahu but as a connection of the grids.

"The state’s position is that a ‘grid tie’ is appropriate, primarily between Oahu and Maui," Glick said. "It would expand the energy market and create economies of scale, and allow greater penetration."

That issue is still before the PUC, and it’s not clear when it might emerge. Until it does, community worries about the cable have been put on the back burner, too.

As for further development of large-scale wind on Oahu, where the demand is, Gaynor said there are few potential sites. The windiest areas are ridge lines where there is little room for turbines, he said.

Then there’s the cost comparison that has pushed solar ahead, he said.

"Wind was relatively inexpensive, back when we put up Kawailoa, Kahuku and the two Maui projects, but its costs have come down pretty dramatically over the last three or four years.

"But the solar costs have come down even more so," Gaynor added. "Solar was costing for a panel about $4 a watt in 2009, We can now buy panels for these big projects at probably 70-75 cents a watt. So that’s really changed the game for renewables in Hawaii."

There are still about a dozen small wind projects that are still in the pipeline, Glick said, but it would take movement on the proposed "grid tie" to enable the development of larger projects in Maui and elsewhere.

Among the entities pushing for utility-scale wind projects is Castle & Cooke, which owns the site on Lanai where such a project has been proposed. In comments filed last month before the PUC about the HECO Power Supply Improvement Plans, Castle & Cooke Hawaii President Harry Saunders said the company was "disappointed that renewable energy from abundant wind resources from neighbor islands was not included."

Saunders cited a study prepared for the company by AWS Truepower that documented "high capacity factors" for wind resources in Maui County.

"Castle & Cooke continues to believe that the Lanai Wind Project can and should play a vital role in reducing our over-reliance on imported fuels," he wrote.

This is what has Lanai residents concerned. Robin and Sally Kaye are the husband-and-wife critics of the proposal on their island who are happy to see the rhetoric about the cable fall off, but don’t know where things are headed.

"There is still a push for wind power but there doesn’t seem to be a commensurate push for an undersea cable to take it," Robin Kaye said. "I don’t think we’re seeing the death of wind, but I’m hoping we’re seeing the death of the undersea cable.

"It was a very, very painful process here," he added. "It was incredibly divisive."

Henry Curtis, executive director of the environmental group Life of the Land, said he’s perceived a change, too.

"I think the shift has really occurred from wind to solar," said Curtis, who actively tracks energy projects before the PUC. "Lower price more community acceptance, less aesthetic impact."

Sally Kaye seemed a little less certain of the prospects for the interisland cable and, thus, for large-scale wind development. State energy officials, she said, "can’t figure out how to walk away from this and save face at the same time.

"The only way it would make sense is if they would build a whole lot more turbines on Maui, but nobody knows," she added. "This is an idea that simply won’t die."