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> 900/Mwh is 90c per kwh, national average is about 14. Higher cost states are around 20c with Hawaii near 30c. And IIRC, electricity in Hawaii is so expensive
by ardy42 6y ago
> 900/Mwh is 90c per kwh, national average is about 14. Higher cost states are around 20c with Hawaii near 30c.
And IIRC, electricity in Hawaii is so expensive because they generate most of it with diesel.
- notyourwork 6y agoI'm surprised by this. I would have guessed lots of solar there and potentially wind.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoSubstantial amounts of solar coming online in Hawaii, causing the utility to carefully manage additional distributed solar installs [1]. Still expensive because there is much diesel and coal generation (~2GW) left to displace. [1] https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/clean-energy-hawaii/integration-tools-and-resources/locational-value-maps/oahu-locational-value-map-(lvm) https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/clean-energy-hawaii/integra... (red = saturated local electrical infra)
- wartron 6y agoWhy is geothermal not more prominent?
- ceejayoz 6y agoApparently you can have too much geothermal. Their first plant got knocked offline by the 2018 eruption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puna_Geothermal_Venture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puna_Geothermal_Venture There's also this bit: > Additional concerns and opposition to the plant have been raised by Native Hawaiians, who view all forms of volcanic activity as manifestations of the goddess Pele. To the Native Hawaiians who revere Pele, geothermal wells and energy production are a desecration of her body and spirit.
- wlesieutre 6y agoBut no sun or wind gods that we need to worry about?
- nine_k 6y agoProbably you don't drill into sun or wind, thus not producingj any unholy disturbance to the relevant deities.
- wlesieutre 6y agoWind turbines do locally screw with the wind, that's why you can't put them too close to each other. But it's temporary and goes away when the turbine get decommissioned, so maybe that's the difference. Or maybe the wind is traditionally meant to be harnessed (boats) but volcanic energy is not?
- CydeWeys 6y agoIt is used on the Big Island, which is the newest island. Unfortunately most people live on the older islands, which aren't above the volcanic hotspot anymore. And the islands are far enough apart that they all have their own independent electrical grids.
- yellowapple 6y agoEven if they ain't directly on the hot spot, couldn't they still be close enough to it for there to be a useful temperature differential?
- gonzo 6y agoThere were attempts to use the ocean for a heat sorce/sink for downtown AC.
- srswtf123 6y agoAre there any realistic power generation options from tidal/ocean power? Seems like that might be great for Hawaii — if it isn’t still the realm of science fiction?
- gumby 6y agoIt’s still impossible to do on a practical basis. Fortunately there are still people working on it.
- zdragnar 6y agoMost tidal I am familiar with capable of generating anything approaching reasonable amounts causes significant ecosystem impacts- you basically replace entire shorelines with concrete bunkers that act as a crappy gravity battery (you can get significant mass from the water, but not much lift from the tide). I think most research is focused on utilizing less unique space- rooftops, open plains, open ocean. Shorelines are tiny spaces for how ecologically unique they are, plus they tend to be highly desirable for other human uses as well.
- tidalpowercool 6y agoI saw a marketing video for one company that was deploying a prototype to do this a few days ago. I'm unable to remember the name or find a link. I think it was somewhere in oceania that they were installing the protoype in. The unit looked sort of like (this)[https://imgur.com/a/ymulbWF https://imgur.com/a/ymulbWF] but wider and in hd of course. By wider I mean it looked more like a catamaran style boat and the one in the imgur link is more like a monohull boat. The one in the video which they deployed maybe 15-30 yards off shore from a beach was where they installed it and it had branding from their company on the side and some bright yellow accents.
- TylerE 6y agoHawaii is actually pretty worse case for tidal power. You want a narrow estuary with a high tidal swing. Think fjords and similar formations.
- stefan_ 6y ago"carefully manage" aka try to retain the fossil fuel dependence at all costs. Hawaii is a microcosm of egregious mismanagement despite ideal circumstances.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoI was under a similar impression, but an independent audit found that while unnecessary staffing (and associated costs) was occurring, it didn't appear that the utility was attempting to sandbag the grid transformation. There's bloat, but also legitimate progress. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/audit-of-hawaiian-electric-sends-a-postcard-about-the-future-of-regulation/580145/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/audit-of-hawaiian-electric-... > Contrary to stakeholder criticism, Hawaiian Electric's support of Hawaii's groundbreaking 100% by 2045 renewable portfolio standard (RPS) has been strong, the audit found. "It has exceeded its mandated obligations" and criticisms "appear to be largely unfounded." > The problem is cost, it said. Meeting the RPS and the challenge of integrating rooftop solar have led to increased workload and costs, the audit recognized. But Hawaiian Electric increased staffing "with little evidence of any business cases supporting these additions."
- fulafel 6y ago2045? A 30 year transition plan (since '15) sounds like doing nothing and branding it.
- ineedasername 6y agoOnly if they aren't making progress towards the goals, but they do seem to be making progress.
- fulafel 6y agoThe progress could be just from the world changing around them (cost competitive renewables). Doing something would mean putting some skin in the climate change fight.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- throwaway09223 6y agoPresumably solar is not quantified in "most of it" because it is unmeasured. For example, my own solar doesn't factor into the percentage of power generated in California. No one can tell you the price per kwh. All PGE knows is that sometimes they send me power, and sometimes I send them power. They have no idea what my internal usage and costs are.
- samatman 6y agoLots of answers about various renewables, no one addressing why diesel, so let me throw that in: Everything comes to Hawaii by boat or plane, and boats run on diesel. So our power plants burn diesel, instead of coal, because coal, while cheaper per unit energy, would be a whole additional supply chain just for power plants. And yeah, there's more solar and wind every year, but not nearly enough to provide the overprovisioning and storage necessary to use it for baseline power.
- Scoundreller 6y ago> would be a whole additional supply chain just for power plants. This isn't an issue. There are coal ships, coal trains, coal trucks, you name it. Storage is easier too, you just dump it.
- stevenwoo 6y agoIt requires two dumps, one for fuel and one for fly ash with containment - the latter is usually huge.
- gonzo 6y agoThe plants on Oahu, where most of the population lives, burn heavy fuel oil and trash. The other islands burn diesel, from the refinery on Oahu. The ships also burned heavy fuel oil until this year.
- dwighttk 6y agoGeothermal?
- nimos 6y agoBunker fuel for the most part I believe. Puerto Rico is very similar.
- earthboundkid 6y agoWhen I lived in Hawaii in the Obama I years, there was a noticeable consumer solar boom. From what I’ve read, they are meeting their renewable goals so far. There were a few windmills coming along, I think. Another big source of power is trash incineration, which is of course located near the people with bad social capital and terribly polluting, but developers wanted to move in that direction so there was talk about cleaning it up. Not sure anything ever happened though.
- jillesvangurp 6y agoHistorically true but it's being fixed. Wind and solar are basically vastly cheaper than shipping in diesel at this point and Hawai is a great place for both.
- dbjacobs 6y agoActually the bulk of generation is from oil with 25% or so from renewables [1]. So our power prices is heavily influenced by oil prices. Each island is also its own isolated electric grid, so reliability is not great and shifting renewables to other islands isn't possible currently. Unfortunately, the ocean is deep between the islands and connecting them would probably cost close to a billion dollars all in. A bit of a stretch for our small state. [1] - https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/about-us/power-facts https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/about-us/power-facts
- maxerickson 6y ago$100-$200 a year per person over a few years is pretty affordable. $0.50 a day for more reliable power.