Pathways to an Open Grid: O’ahu

THE CHALLENGE

The State of Hawai’i is committed to meet 100% of its electricity needs with renewable energy by the year 2045.  As of 2017, Hawai’i is already meeting 25% of its electricity needs with renewable energy and over 20% of customers have adopted rooftop solar.  As these adoption levels rise, the energy landscape becomes increasingly reliant on additional distributed energy resources such as renewable generation, off-peak energy storage, demand response programs, energy efficiency and electric vehicles.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Having a diverse set of energy options presents the State with many possible paths to 100% renewables. But first there are critical questions that need to be answered about current state grid constraints and how those capabilities change through better planning, equipping, and operation of grid related assets. This understanding of the grid’s capabilities forms the basis of knowledge needed to evaluate possible scenarios for the integration, mix and feasibility of the distributed energy resources being considered in Hawai’i.

OUR PROCESS

The Pathways to an Open Grid (POG) O’ahu project is an independently facilitated, data-driven, collaborative process. Over the next year, participants will forecast potential resource adoption scenarios, analyze the O’ahu electric grid’s renewable hosting capacity, and assess location-specific net benefits of distributed energy resources. A team of experienced facilitators and analysts will collect and integrate stakeholder input into a secure, internet-accessible platform with publicly accessible features. By getting involved now you have the opportunity to shape this independent analysis of Hawai’i’s clean energy future.

HOW IS THIS UNIQUE?

• The output will be a first of its kind, web-based modeling tool with transparent inputs, allowing you to visualize the grid on O’ahu and its potential evolution at the street level.
• This model will look at resources at the street level, and not just island wide.
• A diverse group of stakeholders will help assess possible combinations of distributed resources and their potential value and cost to the grid using dynamic data sets.
• Renewable energy and other resources will be built into the tool to model different scenarios for O’ahu.

WHY PARTICIPATE?

• Help crowdsource data for inputs into this transparent model.
• Share your knowledge and feedback – you will drive the direction of the analysis to produce outputs that are useful for your work.
• Receive access to the data and analysis tools developed through this process.

POG is not about recommending a single path or “picking the winners” but instead aims to create a forum for stakeholders to collaborate in pursuing that analysis together, transparently. The meetings are accessible to the public, working papers will be posted online, and every effort will be made to ensure that there is visibility into the supporting data, analytics, and assumptions used in the process. This will be a collaborative process with independent facilitation and analysis.