ISLAND VOICES
Harness Hawai'i's wave power
By Rep. Cynthia Thielen
Rep. Cynthia Thielen is the assistant minority floor leader, R-50th District (Kailua/Kane'ohe Bay).
CORK, Ireland — The excitement in the air is electric, and the electricity is generated by wave power.
I paid my way to attend the Fifth European Wave Energy Conference here because I believe Hawai'i's consistent source of wave energy is the most effective source of power for our Islands. After listening to the international experts, I am sure wave energy is a feasible renewable source that will lower our utility rates.
I was invited to be a part of the official opening for the conference and to be an "observer" at pre-conference sessions of the International Energy Agency. The IEA was founded after the first oil crisis in the 1970s. In 2001, an agreement set up a program of research and development on Ocean Energy Systems. Member countries include the U.K., Denmark, Portugal, Japan and Canada, with the European Commission joining in and providing funding for qualified projects. The EC's target is to decrease the cost of electricity to 5 cents/kw by 2020.
Numerous European universities actively are researching and testing a variety of wave energy systems, some of which have been installed. LIMPET powers homes on the small Scottish island of Isley. The system survived a massive storm in 2002, and no major mechanical failures have occurred since its installation two and a half years ago.
A number of European utilities are participating in this development of wave energy systems. In the U.K., utilities are driven by a government mandate that power companies will use 10 percent renewables by 2010. That mandate should increase to 20 percent by 2020.
Europe's outstanding progress shows why Hawai'i must change its permissive law into a mandate requiring Hawaiian Electric and its subsidiaries to use 10 percent renewables by 2010.
While Hawai'i residents pay among the highest utility rates in the nation, the wave energy engineers and developers expect to produce or are producing power from wave energy at one-third the cost of HECO's.
The United States, and particularly ocean states like Hawai'i, must catch up with the wave of energy being produced by other nations from the ocean. Gov. Linda Lingle sent a proclamation to the conference delegates suggesting that Hawai'i could be a future site for this conference or hold the first Pacific Wave Energy Conference. With the governor's support, we should make this happen.
A wave buoy soon will be tested at Marine Corps Base Hawai'i at Kane'ohe. Hawai'i should encourage other companies to test their technologies in Hawaiian waters as well, in order to select the leading wave technologies to power our Islands.
Hawaiian Renewable Industries (HRI), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hawaiian Electric Industries, is seeking wave energy proposals, with a December submission deadline for Maui. O'ahu's HRI deadline already closed. HRI has set the price it will pay for wave-energy-delivered power so low that it may discourage, and actually has discouraged, some of the proven technology companies from submitting proposals.
If HRI truly wants to see wave power be developed, it would offer an economic package to wave power companies that pays them more per kilowatt the first years, possibly 8 cents (about half of what Hawaiian Electric charges consumers), thereafter decreasing to 5 cents, the European Commission's 2020 objective.
An entity like HRI should consider the long-range benefits to Hawai'i of decreasing dependency on fossil fuels. Shareholders of Shell Oil have supported Shell's move toward its goal of 50 percent renewables by 2050. HEI's shareholders are equally capable of understanding the long-range economic benefit of moving from fossil fuel dependency to use of Hawai'i's natural wave power.
In Hawai'i, we are surrounded by the highest recorded and consistent wave power in the world, and it is time for us to harness some waves.
