Post by account_disabled on Mar 3, 2024 18:26:39 GMT 12
A frayed Kauai Island Utility Cooperative cable connected to generators caused a widespread outage on Sunday. Then the clouds rolled in, limiting solar production. The tough conditions put the utility’s two large solar plus storage plants to the test.
Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC)’s largest generator, Kapaia Power Station, became inoperable, the utility reported on Monday. Although the energy cooperative restored power for Sunday’s peak, it had to utilize rolling blac Betting Number Data kouts after that. These blackouts went into Monday and affected roughly 10,000 members.
The lack of sun today was a real challenge, as we had virtually no production from our large solar facilities,” KIUC’s president and CEO David Bissell said Monday. On top of that, we have increased demand from residential and commercial rooftop solar customers whose systems aren’t producing.
However, as PV Magazine’s Christian Roselund reported today, Kauai Island Utility Cooperative didn’t have to implement any further rolling blackouts after that, in part because both the AES Lawai and Tesla facilities were able to charge their battery systems to 100%.
Roselund pointed out that conditions on Kauai are technically challenging because the island is more than 100 miles from other Hawaiian islands and holds no electrical interconnection. “This means that unlike the places where the overwhelming majority of Americans live, it cannot bring in power from outside,” he wrote.
In addition, Kauai’s solar resources are concentrated in 562 square miles, Roselund continued. “Multiple studies have shown that in order to maintain relatively steady output on a day-to-day basis from solar, it is necessary to deploy solar plants across sufficiently large geographic areas that their output is not impaired by local weather.
KIUC currently serves 33,000 electric accounts on the island of Kauai. The not-for-profit generation, transmission, and distribution cooperative’s goal is to use renewable resources to generate 70% of the island’s power by 2030. As of early 2019, roughly half the electricity came from a mix of renewable resources — solar, hydropower, and biomass, KIUC reported.
Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC)’s largest generator, Kapaia Power Station, became inoperable, the utility reported on Monday. Although the energy cooperative restored power for Sunday’s peak, it had to utilize rolling blac Betting Number Data kouts after that. These blackouts went into Monday and affected roughly 10,000 members.
The lack of sun today was a real challenge, as we had virtually no production from our large solar facilities,” KIUC’s president and CEO David Bissell said Monday. On top of that, we have increased demand from residential and commercial rooftop solar customers whose systems aren’t producing.
However, as PV Magazine’s Christian Roselund reported today, Kauai Island Utility Cooperative didn’t have to implement any further rolling blackouts after that, in part because both the AES Lawai and Tesla facilities were able to charge their battery systems to 100%.
Roselund pointed out that conditions on Kauai are technically challenging because the island is more than 100 miles from other Hawaiian islands and holds no electrical interconnection. “This means that unlike the places where the overwhelming majority of Americans live, it cannot bring in power from outside,” he wrote.
In addition, Kauai’s solar resources are concentrated in 562 square miles, Roselund continued. “Multiple studies have shown that in order to maintain relatively steady output on a day-to-day basis from solar, it is necessary to deploy solar plants across sufficiently large geographic areas that their output is not impaired by local weather.
KIUC currently serves 33,000 electric accounts on the island of Kauai. The not-for-profit generation, transmission, and distribution cooperative’s goal is to use renewable resources to generate 70% of the island’s power by 2030. As of early 2019, roughly half the electricity came from a mix of renewable resources — solar, hydropower, and biomass, KIUC reported.