MAALAEA - First Wind, to its surprise, has discovered that lower slopes provide a good place to catch wind for its windmill expansion.
And now it is proposing to expand the Kaheawa Pastures wind farm to a ridge below the existing farm, rather than parallel it to the west.
A revised draft environmental impact statement has been published, moving the lower site to the status of "preferred location."
The turbines have been on the island for a year, awaiting permitting to allow another 21 megawatts of wind power to be added to the power grid. Kaheawa Wind Power I, in operation above Maalaea since 2006, is rated at 30 megawatts.
If a purchase power agreement with Maui Electric Co. and state permits can be obtained on First Wind's proposed schedule, construction would start in the third quarter of 2010 and power generation would begin in the second quarter of 2011.
First Wind finds several advantages to siting the 14 1.5-megawatt towers below the existing farm.
Because the land is flatter, less of it would be needed, 143 acres instead of 333. Less road building and transmission line work would be needed. And, avoiding crossing the sensitive Manawainui Gulch is a big plus.
The area is clear of archaeological remains and, says the draft environmental impact statement, no more problematic regarding native birds and bats than the old preferred location, and perhaps even better.
And it would cost less to build: $79 million instead of about $84 million (not counting the cost of the generators and towers).
Comments on the revised draft are due by Jan. 22 and should be submitted to the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands, P.O. Box 621, Honolulu 96809, with a copy to the environmental consultants, Planning Solutions Inc., 210 Ward Ave., Suite 330, Honolulu 96814.
Perry White of Planning Consultants said wind monitoring towers provided an unexpected result. The wind farm, the first successful commercial wind farm in the state, lies well up the slopes above Maalaea, centered about 3,000 feet in elevation. It was expected that at low elevations, turbulence would be a problem.
However, measurements showed that is not so much a concern. The access road on state land is called the steepest road to a wind farm in the world, and avoiding that terrain has many advantages.
On Thursday, Noi Kapili of First Wind said the discovery of a better wind site shows the importance of "doing a complete study," even though there were previous studies done for the wind farm already there.
"We did all the studies, and it showed we can use the lower site with a much smaller footprint," Kapili said.
Earlier this year, Sempra Generation of San Diego took over a wind project at Ulupalakua. Now, it is moving ahead to build a 22-megawatt generating station. That is less ambitious than the 40-megawatt facility that Shell Wind had planned. (Shell sold its Ulupalakua interests to Sempra.)
Likewise, Kaheawa Wind Power II is less ambitious now than when it was first proposed in 2006, when it was slated to provide 29 megawatts of power.
On the other hand, both projects are expected to advance technologically beyond the first Kaheawa wind farm by incorporating electricity storage.
Wind power is unstable because wind speeds fluctuate. Importing large amounts into a grid can create voltage fluctuations, or even outages. Maui Electric is now requiring storage, primarily to even out the flow of electrons so that grid management is less difficult. But storage also offers the possibility of accumulating electricity at night (when the wind blows best) and feeding it into the grid during the day (when demand is highest).
First Wind is proposing to incorporate a battery electricity storage system into its power generation. Some federal money is being invested in these enhancement techniques for both Kaheawa farms.
Kaheawa is obligated to spend millions to mitigate impacts on rare species.
The four species of concern are the Hawaiian petrel, the Newell's shearwater, the nene and the Hawaiian hoary bat.
One dead bat was found in October 2008. It probably was killed when it flew into a tower. And, over the three years of Kaheawa's operation, there have been four "takes" of target species, Kapili said. That was at the lower end of predicted species deaths by the project's biological consultants, she said.
Studies in the summer and fall this year, using radar and night-vision equipment, found about four seabirds a night traveling through the target area.
The new preferred location would extend the string of wind towers down the mountain, along the access road built to reach the upper pastures for the first wind farm.
In the draft environmental study, First Wind said it is not contemplating a third wind farm because there doesn't seem to be enough demand for it, given technical limitations.
* Harry Eagar can be reached at heagar@mauinews.com.
