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Energy

Celebrating Alternatives

Friday, January 20th, 2012

Caption by Catherine Cluett, photo ©PF Bentley/PFPix.com

Molokai hosted its first Alternative Energy Festival last weekend, organized by I Aloha Molokai, a community group that opposes industrial wind turbines on the island. The festival featured panel discussions on the state’s proposed Big Wind project, alternatives to that plan, workshops on topics from how to dry food to how to finance a small photovoltaic system, entertainment by acclaimed musicians such as Amy Hanaiali`i, and a youth poster contest. Above, musicians from the group Molokai Drums gave a debut performance to open the festival.

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Bio-Logical Capital names Dr. Keiki-Pua Dancil as Vice President, Hawaii

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

Bio-Logical Capital names Dr. Keiki-Pua Dancil as Vice President, Hawaii

BIO-LOGICAL CAPITAL NEWS RELEASE

Bio-Logical Capital, a land investment, development, and conservation company, formally welcomes Keiki-Pua Dancil, Ph.D. as its vice president of Hawaii operations. In her role as vice president, Hawaii, she oversees Bio-Logical Capital’s activities and investments in the islands.

Bio-Logical partnered with developer Pattern Energy earlier this year to form Molokai Renewables, LLC and pursue a wind turbine project on Molokai and undersea transmission cable to Oahu.

Dancil most recently was the president and CEO of the Hawaii Science and Technology Institute and the Hawaii Science and Technology Council, with which she was involved in developing strategic partnerships between state and federal agencies, private and public schools, and the business community on issues including workforce development and economic revitalization in science and technology. Previously, Dancil was the executive vice president of a diversified medical technology company involved in the manufacturing of raw materials for various pharmaceutical applications.

At Bio-Logical, she most recently served as vice president of Hawaii Business and Development and Strategy.

She received her doctorate in chemistry from the University of California, San Diego and her master’s degree in business administration from Harvard University. Currently Dancil is on the board of PBS Hawaii and Hawaii Strategic Development Corporation.

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Testifiers Tell MECO ‘No’

Monday, October 24th, 2011

Molokai cannot afford a 6.7 percent electricity rate increase requested by Maui Electric Company (MECO), residents testified during a Public Utilities Commission (PUC) public hearing at Mitchell Pauole Center last week.

MECO filed the request with the PUC in July in order to “cover the cost of improvements to integrate additional renewable energy and improve the reliability of service to its Maui, Lanai and Molokai customers,” according to a press release.

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Lawmakers Plan Wind Talks on Molokai

Friday, October 14th, 2011

Sen. Mike Gabbard and at least two other legislators will visit Molokai Nov. 2 to discuss the so-called “Big Wind” project with local residents, the senator confirmed today.

Gabbard, who chairs the Senate Energy/Environment Committee, is leading the visit with Sen. Kalani English and Rep. Denny Coffman. Rep. Mele Carroll may also attend.

The legislators are finalizing plans to hold listening sessions with various groups on the island, including people who might be for or against industrial wind farms on Molokai and Lanai, between 8 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. They plan to visit Lanai Nov. 3.

Residents interested in scheduling a session may call Gabbard’s office at 808-586-6830.

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Cut Back Energy Costs

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

Kanu Hawaii is pleased to announce the start of the Molokai Home Energy Monitor Program, a new energy pilot project intended to help Molokai renters and homeowners understand and manage their energy use.

The project will invite 100 Molokai households to receive a free whole-house energy monitor that displays real-time, minute-to-minute energy consumption and cost data via a table-stop display about the size of a cell phone.  The display shows up-to-the minute dollar costs for all electricity use in the home, from "phantom" draw from electronics to opening the fridge door or taking a hot shower. As appliances are turned on and off, the monitor shows the changing cost.

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Lanai, An Endangered Hawaiian Island

Wednesday, August 31st, 2011

The island of Lanai, one of Maui County’s treasures, has breathtaking natural beauty, lavish resorts and a crown jewel – the last intact plantation town in the country, centered around a spacious central park. In 2009, Lanai City was listed as one of the 11 most Endangered Historic Places in America.

All of this is at risk, and the threat is two-fold: Castle & Cooke has recently applied for the demolition of 15 to 20 historic buildings in Lanai City to make way for large-scale commercial development. Rather than preserving the historic buildings and incorporating them into a development plan, they hope to erase them altogether.

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East Molokai Solar Limits Reached

Monday, August 15th, 2011

East Molokai Solar Limits Reached

Molokai residents east of Kaunakakai who want to reap the benefits of installing small, renewable energy systems for their homes or businesses may be out of luck. Based on limits set by the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC), Maui Electric Company (MECO) has announced effective closure of the east half of Molokai to new renewable energy systems in order to ensure stability and reliability of electric service, according to MECO.

Each island has its own energy grid, and every grid is broken into circuits that serve different regions of the island. Molokai has five circuits, while Oahu has 465. As of last week, the circuit running from Kaunakakai to Halawa has reached the 15 percent threshold of renewable energy that the PUC has set on electric circuits statewide.

Because most renewable energy is a variable energy source – solar panels, for example, are only effective during the day – fluctuations in the electric grid caused by the use of renewable energy can result in instabilities and possible interruptions in service. In order to maintain the reliability of electric service to customers, residents and business owners wishing to install additional renewable energy systems to an already filled circuit may be required to pay for a study that would “determine that more distributed generation systems like PV [photovoltaic solar] can be safely added to the circuit, or determine what steps are needed to reliably accommodate more on the circuit,” according to MECO spokeswoman Kau`i Awai-Dickson, via email.

,” said Mangelsdorf, also a member of the working group.

In addition, Awai-Dickson said MECO is working on a team led by the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute to “develop and install automated controls and energy storage technologies at the neighborhood level of the electric system to enable better use of distributed renewable generation.”

“The work is just beginning and we hope that by working together, we can help develop a process to support the management of more clean energy solutions on our grids,” said Awai-Dickson.

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MECO Requests 6.7% Rate Increase

Monday, August 1st, 2011

Maui Electric Company (MECO) filed a request with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) last week for a 6.7 percent rate increase for Maui County customers next year. If granted, the typical ratepayer’s bill would increase by about $13 per month in mid-2012, according to a MECO press release.

MECO’s request was prompted by “the need to recover costs of improving existing and adding new facilities in 2011 and 2012 that will help to maintain reliable electric service, reduce emissions and add more renewable energy to our grid,” said MECO Communications Supervisor Kau`i Awai-Dickson.

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Cut Down Energy with Hui Up

Friday, July 29th, 2011

For the past two weeks, a brigade in blue swept the island, armed with energy meters and power strips. Their mission: reduce energy consumption and educate the community on appliance efficiency.

SustAINAble Molokai interns and student volunteers teamed up with Blue Planet Foundation’s Hui Up program to help residents save substantial energy and money each year. Through Hui Up, Molokai residents have the opportunity to trade in old refrigerators in exchange for new Energy Star models. The first shipment of energy efficient ice boxes arrived this week, and applications are still available for the swap on a first-come-first-serve basis.

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Schatz Discusses Molokai’s Strengths, Challenges

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

Schatz Discusses Molokai’s Strengths, Challenges

Lt. Governor Brian Schatz visited Molokai last Wednesday, attending an award ceremony honoring Monsanto Hawaii’s Molokai farm for receiving the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s top safety designation. He also visited several Molokai businesses and organizations before sitting down with The Molokai Dispatch for a question and answer session.

TMD: How has office been so far for you?

SCHATZ:  We’ve been making good progress. I think it’s important to remember how far we’ve come in the last seven months. We started with a $1.3 billion budget shortfall and not a lot of economic momentum. By the end of the year, we expect to have a balanced financial plan and we’re gonna see some improvement in the private economy as well. We understand that there are special challenges on Molokai and that’s one of the reasons that I’m here on behalf of the governor, is to better understand how state government can help folks and try to create jobs.

the public utilities commission to decide upon together, hopefully by consensus. The truth is Oahu is not in a position to generate its own energy, there’s not enough land, and so Molokai has an opportunity to benefit from the fact that they can provide electricity to Oahu. So it’s just a matter of configuring an arrangement so that Molokai gets its fair share.

TMD: Should the community stay so opposed to Big Wind, and their mind isn’t changed, do you still think this is the right path?

SCHATZ: I think it depends on how you define community. It’s very early in the process, and I’m confident that we can find ways to make renewable energy work and still have respect for and appreciation for the places where the energy gets generated. So I don’t want to get through a hypothetical about well what if it doesn’t work out, because I think that would be a couple of years from now, but I really do think there are models that work. For instance, with Puna on the Big Island, geothermal, there was strong opposition to that and now because the model has changed, you have many of the same people who were opposed to the project asking for additional wells and additional geothermal energy. Why is that? Because their opposition in the ’70s wasn’t about being opposed to geothermal energy, it was about a sense that it wasn’t fair. And so if you do these things in a way that’s fair, then you can get maybe not everyone unanimously in favor of something, but you can get some degree of consensus. And I think as long as you’re respectful and fair, that’s the right way to do things.

TMD: We just wanted to talk a little bit about agriculture. How do you think Molokai can contribute more agriculturally to the state?

SCHATZ: I think there are a lot of people who want to farm. One of the challenges on Molokai is water, and I think our Department of Hawaiian Homelands and our Department of Agriculture are working to try to make sure that those who want to farm have water that’s available and affordable. So that’s the government’s job. The government’s job is to set the table, set the stage for agriculture to occur. We can’t force anybody to farm or anybody to buy a product from a farm, but what we can do is provide training, provide technical expertise. We can do a little bit in the area of creating markets through the Department of Education, through our prison system. There’s a strong desire to make sure that if we’re buying food for our own prisoners and certainly for our own keiki that it ought to be as much as possible local food. And that would be to create a built-in market, and that all takes time. So we’re working on those issues. If we can create a market and allow people’s land to have access to water, that’s real progress.

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