This month, the state Agribusiness Development Corporation (ADC) is expected to vote on whether to issue a 35-year license to Green Energy, LLC, a Kaua`i company that plans to grow trees on state land in Kalepa, then chip and burn them to create electricity. The project, which includes private land as well, could potentially provide 11 percent of the island’s electricity.
Right now, the state lands are still managed by the Department of Land and Natural Resources, and Green Energy has a revocable permit to harvest trees from more than 1,000 acres. The DLNR is in the process of transferring those lands to the ADC.
Last month, company president Eric Knutzen updated the ADC board on the project’s status. He reported that Green Energy had signed a power purchase agreement with the Kaua`i Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) in January. A long-term license from the ADC would need to be approved as soon as possible to secure adequate financing, which he expects to acquire by August.
If the state Public Utilities Commission approves the project, construction should start this November and commercial operation should begin two years later.
“There’s a lot of expectations here,” Knutzen said of his project. If it and other renewable projects that have been proposed don’t succeed, KIUC may need to build a fossil fuel plant, he said.
* * *
Power Developers Compete
For Water, Land in West Kaua`i
While the Green Energy project is likely to get the green light from the ADC, complications abound for the renewable energy projects proposed by Kaua`i-based Pacific Light and Power for lands in Kekaha.
Last September, the ADC gave the company preliminary support for its proposal to lease about 1,800 acres of land controlled by the agency to create a variety of renewable energy projects that would primarily benefit area farmers. But a competing proposal by Pacific West Energy, LLC, sought to use the same amount of land to grow biomass to generate electricity for the Kaua`i Island Utility Cooperative. That proposal has since found support from at least one ADC board member, chair Christine Daleiden.
After losing out to PLP in September, Pac West managed to garner support from Kaua`i County Council member JoAnn Yukimura and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, and eventually persuaded the ADC to reconsider its decision.
In December, the ADC board established an investigative committee to look more closely into the land and water needs of PLP’s project, which would help determine if there was any room for Pac West.
Based on the committee’s report to the board last month, things don’t look good for Pac West, registered in Delaware.
Kekaha Committee chair David Rietow, who was on the investigative committee, explained that PLP will need all 1,800 acres — which is about all available land in the ADC’s mauka section — to grow biomass for its gasification plants and to construct its hydropower facilities.
ADC executive director Alfredo Lee said that some land for Pac West could become available if existing tenants are willing to give up some of their land.
Rietow noted that PLP’s project would improve the area’s irrigation system and generate electricity for tenants. He said it was “farm-oriented, not energy-oriented,” in that it focused on the needs of the Kekaha Agriculture Association.
Lee noted that PLP needed to sign a license by mid-April, which meant that the board needed to decide soon whether to devote any more time to Pac West’s proposal.
Daleiden said that, to determine PLP’s lease terms, the board needs to decide if it wants to allow other energy tenants on its lands.
“How can we divide up the lands? Can we have both parties submit a compromise position?” she asked.
Lee responded that both parties have indicated they want all of the available land for themselves. If the board moves forward with a license to PLP, it needs to include a lot of special conditions, he added.
“My concern is that we give them a 20-year license and they don’t do anything,” he said.
Hydropower
As if one competitor weren’t enough, PLP is facing competition for the water it needs for its proposed hydropower plants along the Koke`e Ditch.
As part of its overall plan for the ADC’s Kekaha lands, PLP has proposed to develop three hydroelectric facilities along the Koke`e and Kekaha irrigation ditches to produce a total of 11 megawatts. Two of those will be on the Koke`e Ditch.
But last October, the Massachusetts-based Free Flow Power Corporation filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that also proposes to develop hydropower on the Koke`e Ditch. And in January, the KIUC announced that it had signed a memorandum of agreement with the company to explore the development of four hydroelectric projects across the island, including the one at Koke`e.
PLP, the ADC, the County of Kaua`i, and the Kekaha Agriculture Association, which manages most of the infrastructure of the Kekaha lands for the ADC, have all filed motions to intervene.
PLP has filed for an exemption from regulation by FERC because its project will not discharge into navigable waters, but into an irrigation ditch.
PLP’s chief development officer, Palo Luckett, says that for any hydropower facility to succeed using the Koke`e ditch, “all parties would need to be on board,” noting that the ADC has the rights over the land and water in the ditch and the KAA controls the flow of water.
For PLP, the hydro facilities are key to their overall plan to improve both the agricultural and electrical infrastructure on the ADC’s Kekaha lands while generating electricity. Revenue from the hydro plants will pay for eight miles of irrigation pipes that would conserve water, improve water quality, and reduce the need to maintain ditches.
Luckett says the project will cost about $40 million to construct.
For Further Reading
The following related articles are available at our website, www.environment-hawaii.org:
“Board Defers on Plan to Grow Albizia for Fuel,” BOARD TALK, January 2008;
“Farmers Make Room for Green Energy,” BOARD TALK, August 2008;
“Agribusiness Subcommittee Approves Renewable Energy Project at Kekaha,” October 2010;
“Agribusiness Committee May Reconsider Rejected Biofuels Project at Kekaha,” January 2011.
— Teresa Dawson
Volume 21 Number 8, March 2011
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