Kauai was 100% renewably powered for 32 hours over the last month

Authored by pv-magazine-usa.com and submitted by toyota_tacoma_black
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For five beautiful hours on Tuesday, December 10, the Hawaiian island of Kauai achieved total electrical generation from renewable sources. This marks a total of 32 cumulative hours over 11 days since November 22 that the island has run on 100% clean energy.

The generation came entirely from the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative’s (KIUC) renewable portfolio, which is comprised of a combination of distributed and utility-scale solar, a biomass plant and a number of relatively small hydro generation facilities. The grid supports an estimated 100,000 people, including visitors, roughly the same size as a large college football stadium.

The accomplishment is one of both pride and obligation for KIUC President and Chief Executive Officer, David Bissell.

“We want to provide the cleanest electricity possible, but we have to be mindful that our primary obligation is to provide safe, reliable power to our members at all times. Our operations personnel needed ample time to put all the necessary pieces into place before pushing the envelope to 100% renewable. Now we’re doing it routinely.”

Kauai now joins the exclusive list of areas that have achieved extended periods of 100% renewable generation. It is the second American region to achieve such a feat. This past spring, the California Independent Systems Operator (CAISO) reported that, for most of the period between 1:50 PM and 3:05 PM on Sunday April 21, more CO2-free electricity was generated than users demanded in the region it covers. Put simply, California made more clean energy than it needed.

That news came just one week after CAISO reported instantaneous electricity generation of 11,011 MWac from solar power facilities connected to the transmission grid on Saturday, April 13, at 1:50 PM. When distributed generation was factored into that total, the number rose to at least 17 GWac of electricity generation coming from solar power. For a shining moment, the state hit 93% of demand with clean electricity.

Moving internationally, on February 22nd, 2017, Denmark generated enough energy with its wind turbines to power the entire country for the day for the first time. The generation clocked in at 97 GWh, the result of an especially windy day.

Just over a year later, Portugal’s renewable electricity generation for the month of March exceeded cumulative consumption for the first time, according to the nation’s transmission system operator. It was a goal that the country had come close to achieving in 2014, when renewable generation reached 99.2% and in 2014, when it achieved 100% renewable generation for a four-day stretch.

Rounding out the renewable five, comes Costa Rica, which may have the most impressive show of the bunch. The country has had multiple stretches of meeting energy demand entirely through renewables. On its worst day, the nation achieves 98% of its energy demand through renewable generation. As of this year, the share of renewables in Costa Rica’s power generation system reached 98.84%.

polarm00n on December 20th, 2019 at 03:52 UTC »

proud to live here, it has been alot faster ever since we switched

808surfer4life on December 20th, 2019 at 03:37 UTC »

Kauai residents and businesses seem to be the most motivated in terms of taking care of the Aina, so I’m not surprised to see this happened on Kauai.

Other islands also have a culture of respect for the environment but the energy demands are much higher on Oahu and Maui so it will take some time before all of Hawai'i can run off 100% renewables.

There’s already a large amount of residents living off grid on Big Island because it’s sometimes easier to get power this way than dealing with the local utility providers.

Each island is unique but I really think we’ll be able to reach sustainability in terms of energy usage and production. I’m a wood supplier out here and there’s big reforestation and other environmentally friendly projects in the works that don’t always make the news.

Our challenges are unique considering how isolated we are but there’s a lot of good people here fighting for a cleaner/healthier tomorrow.

toyota_tacoma_black on December 20th, 2019 at 02:30 UTC »

few hour....pbbt

Found this reading a press release on the topic:

Additionally, the steam-injected gas turbine generator at Kapaia Power Station is the first of its kind to be retrofitted to run in synchronous condenser mode. This allows the generator, manufactured by General Electric, to provide inertia, fault current, voltage support and frequency stabilization to the grid without burning fuel. When power is needed, the turbine can be restarted within five minutes.