Hawaiian Electric Companies seeking approximately 900 megawatts of renewables and renewables paired with storage

The Hawaiian Electric Companies recently launched the state’s largest procurement effort for renewable energy resources, which seeks approximately 900 megawatts (MW) of new renewables or renewables paired with storage.

The procurement effort aims to end the use of coal in Hawaii, reduce reliance on imported oil for power generation, and move the state closer to its goal of 100 percent renewable energy by 2045.

The effort is among the largest single renewable energy procurements undertaken by a U.S. utility.

“Hawaiian Electric has made huge strides toward our renewable energy goals and will end this year achieving a renewable generation portfolio of 30 percent,” Alan Oshima, president and CEO of Hawaiian Electric, said. “This effort is a big step in accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to locally-sourced clean energy resources. For customers, the benefits are simple: cleaner energy at lower prices.”

The request includes estimated targets of technologies equal to 594 MW of solar for Oahu, 135 MW for Maui and up to 203 MW for Hawaii Island.

Projects for Maui must include energy storage. Solar projects for Hawaii Island must consist of storage, but storage is optional for Hawaii Island projects featuring other technologies. On Oahu, pairing generation with energy storage is optional. Storage is also being sought for Oahu and Maui to replace firm generating units, which can be provided by renewable generation paired with storage or standalone storage. The companies are also seeking contingency storage for Oahu and Hawaii islands.

The companies also issued a separate request for proposals for grid services from customer-sited distributed energy resources. They are seeking grid services such as fast frequency response and capacity for Oahu, Maui, and Hawaii islands with targets ranging from 4 MW to 119 MW.

Pending negotiations of contracts and final approvals, the first renewable generation projects from this phase would come online in 2022. The total amount of megawatts is expected by 2025.

Pending negotiations of contracts and final approvals, the grid services projects are expected to begin ramping up in late 2020 with the total amount expected by 2022.

The companies expect to issue final requests for proposals later this year for the equivalent of 4 MW of solar or 3.6 MW of small wind for Molokai, paired with energy storage, and an equivalent up to 9.5 MW of solar paired with energy storage for Lanai, pending approval by the PUC.