Dive Brief:
- Hawaiian Electric has asked customers to use electricity "as efficiently as possible" for the next several days as the utility struggles with demand spikes during a heat wave.
- On September 16, the utility issued a call for customers to conserve power during peak demand hours. The utility made it through the day without outages, but cautioned customers the system remained strained.
- Exacerbating the muggy weather, Hawaiian Electric said it expected generation reserves would remain low as repairs are made on a power plant owned by Kalaeloa Partners, an independent power producer.
Dive Insight:
This is the second time in a little more than a week that Hawaiian Electric has had to ask customers to conserve energy. The utility previously cited weather, as well as the unavailability of two major generators the Kalaeloa Partners facility and Hawaiian Electric's Waiau power plant.
"As we saw last week, cooperation from our customers helps because every little bit of energy we conserve makes a difference," said Darren Pai, Hawaiian Electric spokesman. The utility asked its larger commercial customers to voluntarily reduce electricity use and system operators also used Hawaiian Electric’s demand response programs.
The utility said Kalaeloa Partners normally provides 208 MW of generation to support the island's energy needs, but there was an unexpected outage. The 90 MW generator at the Waiau power plant "experienced problems" and was offline during the September 8 call to reduce usage.
