More than $400,000 is going toward the development and deployment of distributed energy systems at the Hawaii Ocean Science and Technology Park to help the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority better understand its electricity costs and performance, announced the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
The U.S. Department of Energy funds will be used to analyze how advanced energy technologies could improve energy performance at the Kailua-Kona park, run by NELHA, with the development of a small micro-grid — a new approach to power generation in which a cluster of small, on-site generators with serve the facility. Money will also be used to provide related updates to the state’s renewable energy and distributed energy resources strategy.
The DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory serves as the park’s project manager.
“The unique features and transmission constraints make Hawaii Island an ideal location for testing and evaluating new distributed generation and power management technologies that are designed to improve the performance of the grid. We are pleased work with NELHA on these key areas,” said Bill Kramer, NREL manager for distributed energy systems integration.
A major component of the project is development of a solar energy test bed at the park’s research campus. The project also includes an industrial control system for seawater system equipment combined with a system to monitor, collect and report data about electricity use at NELHA, as well as the collection of system and solar resource data at the NELHA site. Additionally, the Renewable Energy and Distributed Electric Resources Strategy will be updated to increase the use of the Hawaii Gateway Energy Center.
“The NREL partnership will allow us to implement a solar test bed at NELHA’s research campus and continue to develop distributed energy resources at NELHA,” said NELHA Executive Director Gregory Barbour. “We are very grateful to NREL for the opportunity to work closer with them to better understand the electricity cost and performance for our facilities and especially the seawater distribution system at (the park). The control and data acquisition system will provide a backbone that NELHA can build out further in the coming years and greatly assist in making the seawater system more cost-efficient.”
Located on 870 acres of coastal property in Kailua-Kona, the energy and ocean technology park offers research support facilities for the development of renewable energy and other demonstration projects. It is the world’s only facility that continually brings ashore warm surface and cold deep seawater 24 hours a day, allowing for various tests to take place with views to reap economic potentials from the dual temperature seawater delivery system and high solar insulation.
Park tenants work at the precommercial, commercial, research and educational levels. It is the largest diversified economic development project in the state and is solely focused on developing green economic projects. For more information, visit nelha.org.