Electricity shortage hits portions of Big Island
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Staff Writer
The air conditioners went off in Kona shortly after noon yesterday, and in Ka'u an hour later, as Hawai'i Electric Light Co. battled with growing demand for electricity and a teetering power generation system.
The power company called on Hawai'i County's residents to conserve, but several of the Big Island's power plants were down because of malfunctions, critical maintenance needs or regulatory checks, and the power company was unable to meet its midday load peak.
The utility averted additional blackouts last night. It brought two diesel generators in Kona on line for an additional 5 megawatts.
"We hope we can get a couple more generators online in the next day or two,said HELCO President Warren Lee, who welcomed the long holiday weekend because power demand drops by about 10 megawatts during weekends.
He said the utility hoped to be able to bring enough more power onto the distribution system to be ready for the return to regular workweek loads by Tuesday.
The Big Island power grid suffers from a number of problems, besides the simple issue of the island's size and long distances between clusters of customers.
Most of the island's power generation capacity is on the Hilo side, where the economy was strongest in the days of the sugar industry. But today, most of the demand is on the Kona side, where tourism has grown dramatically.
The company suffers line losses of 10 percent to 15 percent when it has to generate power in Hilo and transmit it across the island.
A court recently ordered a halt to a $100 million, 56-megawatt power plant expansion at Keahole because of problems in permitting.
Without it, the company has warned, it is operating close to the edge and the island faces rolling blackouts when there are unusual problems.
Lee said unusual problems are becoming more usual, in part because of the age of some of its facilities.
"Our equipment is old. Our steam plants are approaching or over 50 years old. This equipment operates at high temperatures, high pressures, high speed. It needs a lot of maintenance and repair," he said.
Yesterday, one of the naphtha-fired combustion turbines at the Hamakua Power Partners plant in Haina had to go down for emergency maintenance, losing the power company more than 30 megawatts. Five of six diesel generators at Keahole were down for minor repairs, costing more than 12 megawatts. An 8.25-megawatt diesel at Waimea was down for an overhaul.
The company is waiting for parts for a big 11.5 megawatt diesel in Hilo and doesn't expect to get it running until January. And the Puna Geothermal plant, where mechanical problems had reduced output from 35 megawatts to 5 megawatts, was offline entirely for regulatory inspections.
The Big Island has more than 25 megawatts of windfarm and hydroelectric plant capacity, but it hasn't been raining and there's very little wind.
Lee said HELCO was getting just about 1.5 megawatts from one wind plant, and nothing from any of the other facilities.
The upshot was that yesterday morning, the company had barely 150 megawatts available, and the island's peak daily demands at this time of year are about 155 megawatts in the late morning and 160 megawatts in the early evening.
Big Islanders conserved power when asked yesterday, and delayed the morning peak from its normal 10:30 a.m. to about 12:30 p.m. By then, the day was hot, and air conditioners were being turned on. As the power draw climbed up to 149 and then 150 megawatts, someone had to be cut off.
The company started a series of one-hour rolling blackouts. Customers in North Kona were the first to lose power. At 1:30, they came back on, and customers in Ka'u were shut off.
Power company officials expected to need a third blackout, but by 2:30 p.m., demand had dropped, and the whole island had power again.
The company is asking Big Island residents to continue to reduce power use.
"If you can bring out the hibachi, that would help," he said.
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