![]() ![]() The technical challenge facing HECO is enormous. Colton Ching, Senior Vice President for Planning and Technology for HECO, is leading the company’s grid modernization program Stewart Yerton/Civil Beat “The power grid must become a ‘plug-and-play’ platform that integrates an ever-growing set of DER technologies,” the PUC said. And the PUC made clear its vision of a modern grid. The PUC said HECO’s application didn’t specifically address how the power monopoly intended to integrate such distributed energy resources, known as “DERs” in utility parlance. Specifically, the PUC cited the need to accommodate the roughly 77,000 solar systems set up by HECO customers. The PUC further questioned such a large investment for a project that asserted only an “indirect link to address the primary issue currently facing Hawaii’s distribution grids.” “HECO Companies have yet to articulate a sustainable business model that is aligned with customers’ interests and the State’s public policy goals,” the PUC said in its January 2017 order. The PUC said benefits to ratepayers didn’t justify the whopping price tag and that HECO’s vision was limited. The PUC rejected a previous proposal calling for a $736 million upgrade, which HECO submitted in March 2016. The June filing marks HECO’s second effort to convince regulators that HECO has solved what company executives call the “grid mod” puzzle. Ways to deal with distributed resources are “very much central to the draft,” Ching said. On June 30, HECO is scheduled to present a draft grid modernization strategy to the Public Utilities Commission. The challenge facing HECO is how to modernize its power grid to deal with the distributed resources. And, Ching says, “a good chunk of that will come from these distributed resources.” Hawaii’s goal is to produce 100 percent of its electricity from renewable resources by 2045. Such virtual power plants, along with other distributed energy resources, will play a key role in Hawaii’s future, says Colton Ching, the power company’s senior vice president for planning and technology. Tad Glauthier, left, demonstrates Stem’s technology to Leon Dodson, chief financial officer of Watanabe Floral, and Dora Nakafuji, HECO’s director of renewable energy planning. The company says its systems store energy from HECO’s grid and let businesses use the energy during peak times to help even out energy consumption and thereby lower electric bills.Ĭombined with rooftop solar systems some customers have, the technology creates “virtual power plants,” says Kimberly Setliff, a spokeswoman for Stem, which is based in Milbrae, Calif. Stem has set up massive battery systems and software that diagnose energy consumption at 29 businesses on Oahu. as it tries to modernize the grid that brings electricity to some 450,000 customers statewide. in many ways illustrates the challenges facing Hawaiian Electric Co. ![]()
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