Hawaiian Electric Announces Seven Solar Plus Storage Projects

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

Hawaiian Electric Companies submitted contracts earlier this month for seven grid-scale solar-plus-storage projects to be built on three of the state’s islands which will add approximately 262 megawatts (MW) worth of new solar capacity and 1,048 MW-hours worth of energy storage.

Announced in the opening days of 2019, Hawaiian Electric Companies — the largest electric utility on the Hawaiian Islands — revealed that it had submitted contracts for seven grid-scale solar-plus-storage projects to be located across three of the Islands — Oahu (3), Maui (2), and Hawaii Island (2). Not only will the projects bring a substantial increase to the islands’ renewable energy capacity, but it will do so at the lowest prices yet seen in Hawaii.

Specifically, prices for six of the seven projects are the lowest seen in Hawaii:

Project name Island Developer Size Storage Cost per KWh
Waikoloa Solar Hawaii AES 30 MW 120 MWh $0.08
Hale Kuawehi Hawaii Innergex 30 MW 120 MWh $0.09
Kuihelani Solar Maui AES 60 MW 240 MWh $0.08
Paeahu Solar Maui Innergex 15 MW 60 MWh $0.12
Hoohana Oahu 174 Power Global 52 MW 208 MWh $0.10
Mililani I Solar Oahu Clearway 39 MW 156 MWh $0.09
Waiawa Solar Oahu Clearway 36 MW 144 MWh $0.10

“We believe strongly that the renewable energy transformation should benefit everyone and these seven projects will help stabilize customer costs while reducing our reliance on imported fossil fuel and cutting greenhouse gas emissions,” said Shelee Kimura, Hawaiian Electric senior vice president of business development and strategic planning.

The seven projects will provide up to four hours of electricity through storage that can be used during peak time or at night when the sun is no longer shining. According to Hawaiian Electric, the projects will help reduce fossil fuel use on the islands nearly double what is already being accomplished. Specifically, current renewable energy development which was spurred on by the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative has led to fossil fuel reduction of 26%, which means the island is importing approximately 48 million fewer gallons of oil annually to generate electricity. The new solar-plus-storage projects are expected to increase that figure to 100 million gallons each year.


Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.

Latest CleanTechnica TV Video


Advertisement
 
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.

Joshua S Hill

I'm a Christian, a nerd, a geek, and I believe that we're pretty quickly directing planet-Earth into hell in a handbasket! I also write for Fantasy Book Review (.co.uk), and can be found writing articles for a variety of other sites. Check me out at about.me for more.

Joshua S Hill has 4403 posts and counting. See all posts by Joshua S Hill