If Hawaii is to meet its stated objective of reaching 100 percent renewable energy in just 26 years, milestones must be met en route. One marker was reached in January, when the world’s largest solar-plus-storage peaker plant came online in Lawa’i, Kauai in the 50th state.
The plant, formally termed the Lawa’i Solar and Energy Storage Project, is owned and operated by Boulder, Colo.-based AES Distributed Energy. AES partnered with Kauai Island Utility Cooperative, a member-owned cooperative serving 33,000 customer accounts on the island of Kauai, in the venture.
The facility consists of a 28-megawatt solar photovoltaic facility and a 100 megawatt-hour, five-hour duration energy storage system. The new peaker will provide approximately 11 percent of Kauai’s power, bringing the portion of the island’s energy supplied by renewable sources to more than 50 percent.
“We believe this project is the largest solar-plus-storage facility in the world at the present time,” said David Bissell, KIUC’s president & CEO. When operating at full capacity and coupled with the Tesla solar-plus-storage facility, it will allow KIUC to meet 40 percent of its evening peak needs with solar energy, he added.
According to AES, the Lawa’i project will eliminate the use of 3.7 million gallons of diesel fuel each year, and at the same time support several vital power distribution scenarios. It allows for solar generation to supply the grid while charging the battery system. It dispatches power stored in the battery system to the grid during peak demand periods. And it can dispatch solar and battery power simultaneously to respond to demand spikes, in addition to supporting the grid by providing ancillary services.
KIUC’s renewable portfolio has grown from eight percent in 2010 to more than 50 percent. Over that period, there has been a corresponding 15 million gallon annual reduction in reliance on fossil fuel.
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