The marketing image of Hawaii as a carefree, distant paradise masks the higher cost of living and vulnerability to supply disruptions that such distance brings. My home state in the middle of the ocean has no locally available fossil fuels and little alternative energy generation. As a result, it generates 89.8 percent of its power by importing oil - 75% of it from foreign countries - at a cost of $7 billion per year. As a result, Hawaii pays twice the U.S. average for electricity. The costs don't stop there: ever-rising gas prices are passed on to consumers directly at the pump and indirectly at the store, a result of having to import most food and other goods by plane or container ship.
Recognizing the difficulties ahead, Hawaii's state government passed the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, a set of clean energy goals for providing 70% of Hawaii's energy from renewable sources by 2030: 30% by increasing energy efficiency, and 40% from increased use of renewable energy. The plan asserts that Hawaii's temperate climate, wind conditions, large coastline, and geological activity allow its islands to take greater advantage of geothermal, wind, solar, and other alternative energy sources than other parts of the United States. It also acknowledges that the plan depends on public support for its policy goals and public participation in efforts to reduce personal energy use.
One of the challenges of the HCEI is the integration of new types of power generation, such as wind and solar, which do not generate power as consistently as fossil fuel power plants. Since wind speed and sunlight should vary based on weather patterns, it is necessary to collect enough data to determine what those patterns are, limit electricity usage when less power is available, and alert customers when excess power is available - in effect, to create a "smart grid" of sensors to collect information about power generation and use. As explored in a Maui residential testbed by the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, the smart grid would rely on a network of gauges which communicate wirelessly with a central "smart meter," which sends information to the utility. Future software could allow the utility to control certain devices through this network and remotely deactivate them to avoid blackouts. This type of energy control, called "demand response technology", is intended to reduce energy use by high-energy-use devices such as air conditioners during peak hours. Demand response technology, according to the HNEI's Jay Griffin, should be transparent - customers should know why their devices are being shut off, and when supply is in excess of demand, customers should be told and billed at a reduced rate for using electricity during hours which are less stressful for the grid.
The other challenge of the HCEI is convincing people that energy efficiency is something they control and that there is a financial benefit to their doing so. Regardless of utility customers' personal views on environmental issues, anyone is likely to try to reduce energy use if they can be convinced that it will save them money and that the causes of high energy use can be isolated. The Sea Grant institute at the University of Hawaii is currently conducting energy audits (logging of individual devices and circuits' energy use) of military housing. The ultimate goal of an energy audit is to help the audited person or organization to recognize points of high energy use, change their behavior, and ultimately save money. Sea Grant's current auditing procedure requires that its researchers manually graph and check the data gathered by the power-use sensors. Sea Grant uses the comprehensive data, which includes times, device model numbers, and temperature readings, to draw conclusions about residential energy use and provide efficiency advice to the audited family. Sea Grant's eventual goal is to automate data collection and organization in order to get the data into a human readable state in less time.
Hawaii has a long way to go to achieve its 2030 goals for renewable energy production. However, the research efforts now under way promise to make it possible to easily add renewable energy generators onto the power grid and to account for their unpredictability. They also promise to empower the public with new tools and services to track and take control of their energy use, a key part of achieving the increased efficiency goals. In all of these developments, software developers have a key role to play in solving the problems of implementing and analyzing the "smart grid" that is ultimately the backbone of any future system of energy generation.
