Hawaii to become 100% renewable energy- bill signed into law

Wow, I fully support them in their efforts. Thanks for posting.

It really is great to see that some people care about the future and are willing to take a long term view to make things better in Hawaii.

“This isn’t just about getting off of fossil fuels,” he said. “It’s as much about that as is saving money for the average consumer here in a place where we expend millions of dollars importing fossil fuels every year and the faster we can get off of that, the faster we can save money and boost our economy.”

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The generous and cooperative attitude that Hawaii's power companies have towards residential solar should certainly help Hawaii reach this goal.

Oh, wait...

As a lifelong resident here I'm interested to see how they accomplish this. They're probably going to need a lot of stationary storage.

Sounds great on paper, but it can just as easily be changed, pushed or simply be removed again like any other law. Those laws give politicians sympathy. Overcoming an existing and established structure of energy companies and power plants will be very difficult.

HECO is soon to be under new ownership, NextEra Energy (HECO shareholders approved the deal this week; there are still a few regulatory agencies that need to sign off, but the big one, FERC, has approved the acquisition). This is good news for achieving Hawaii's goals. NextEra has one of the largest zero-emissions generation portfolios in the country. In Florida, it replaced all of the old oil-gas steamers with modern combined-cycle plants. The CEO, Jim Robo, is a very sharp person who builds a lot of trust within the company (which may not sound like a big thing, but extraordinary leaders make extraordinary companies).

NextEra bought HECO fully aware of the direction Hawaii is heading, and it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that Robo decided on the acquisition precisely to show that NextEra can run a zero-emissions utility.

Awesome...I want to move there now.

Perfect! Would be just in time for my retirement there.

Seriously, how would Hawaii go about achieving this? On the lines of the Orkney isles (there's a thread about it with a video from Robert Llewellyn)?!

- Obviously, Solar with utility-scale battery backup (Tesla Energy!!)

- Geothermal?

- Tidal?

- Wind? (Have to say that the huge wind turbines on the West Maui mountain slopes were a bit of an eye sore when I could spot them from most parts of the island on our trip in 2012; they weren't there in 2001 on our honeymoon trip)

How much would each of these contribute to the mix?

Awesome! That's the first American domino tipped, 49 left in the set...

Certainly the "newer" islands in the chain have plenty of geothermal potential!

I would think that solar is already cost competitive in Hawaii as the price of electricity seems to be about $0.40/kWh. Here in Ontario I am able to sell my solar power for $0.384 and I calculate about a 13% IRR (albeit helped by depreciation tax credits). Won't this happen without intervention if it makes economic sense?

It's about accelerating common sense, and giving clear expectations to the market. HECO hasn't exactly been welcoming to solar interconnections in the past.

I agree Nextera is a good suitor, among the large corporate utilities to serve HI. The dynamic might change, however, as any realistic all-renewables, by 2045, mandate will require aggressive phase-ins. That will, in turn, limit the island's ability to cost out natural gas as a replacement for fuel oil (infrastructure$$). I thought they were even considering an LNG import facility? A higher Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) may be the silver lining, but the aforementioned high diesel generator costs could be around until they get there.

If the rest of the United States could capitalize on the difference between 12 and 35 cents /kwh, we could finance Elon's "blue square" I bet. Hmmm, 4,000TWH (.23/kwh) = $920 billion per year. You could probably buy that "farm" in three, if you hadn't politically "bought the farm" much sooner.

There are proposed energy projects such as this one. I'm not familiar with the ocean floor depths around the island. However, I would prefer that they anchor these turbines into the sea floor like I've seen with other projects.

gg_got_a_tesla said:

Perfect! Would be just in time for my retirement there.

Seriously, how would Hawaii go about achieving this? On the lines of the Orkney isles (there's a thread about it with a video from Robert Llewellyn)?!

- Obviously, Solar with utility-scale battery backup (Tesla Energy!!)

- Geothermal?

- Tidal?

- Wind? (Have to say that the huge wind turbines on the West Maui mountain slopes were a bit of an eye sore when I could spot them from most parts of the island on our trip in 2012; they weren't there in 2001 on our honeymoon trip)

How much would each of these contribute to the mix?

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