Wind and water blues
I have followed this sad tale for over five years. In the beginning, the story was a fairy tale come true, a joint venture between the Department of Water Supply (DWS) and one of the top wind turbine designers, with financial backers, built a-state-of-the-art wind farm at no cost to the taxpayers!
Yes, you read right, the $15 million Lalamilo Wind Farm (LWF) project didn’t cost us 1 cent! The parties signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), which was a guarantee that the DWS would purchase $8,000 Mgw of power annually. The DWS has eight deep wells (of which only four were working as of July) at the Lalamilo site and use about $5 million in fossil fuels (from HELCO) to pump the water. So, this was a huge win-win – using renewable energy instead of fossil fuels, while saving water board ratepayers about $1 million a year and the $15 million investment into wind didn’t cost Big Islanders anything!
To good to be true?
Well, now it seems the whole project is in doubt. DWS challenged the PPA, which is a mechanism where an entity agrees to purchase a certain amount of energy annually. This cost is usually under the fossil fuel price of energy (since PV and wind is cheaper than coal/oil).
And The Hawaii County Water Board just sided with DWS. This latest move by DWS and the board points to the project being dead or dying. LWF has no recourse but to take DWS and likely Hawaii County to court to try and recoup their $15 million investment.
It is unclear what impact a court case would have on taxpayers if DWS loses the case. Why DWS and the board have taken this path is a mystery to all. Fairy tales deserve a happy ending.
Tlaloc Tokuda
Kailua-Kona
We’ll never know how
Hawaii would have fared
To Mr. Hastings’ “what if” questions and apparent belief that Hawaiians are better off being colonized by the USA (WHT Letters Aug. 29), demonstrates his narrow and limited interpretation of Hawaiian history and culture.
He contemptuously asks, “Where do Polynesians today … move for opportunity? Tonga? Samoa? Tahiti? New Zealand?” He adds, “What would Hawaii look like today if there had been no overthrow and no statehood?”
My, my, spoken like a true colonist! The answer is simple: We will never know because Hawaii was illegally overthrown by the U.S. government and that government has yet to right itself to the people of Hawaii.
Likeke Bumanglag
Kailua-Kona
