Puna Geothermal Venture
Hawaii

Tuesday September 16, 2008

Hawaii's Geothermal Story

When Ormat Technologies, Inc. acquired Puna Geothermal Venture (PGV) on Hawaii Island in June 2004, the state’s most reliable alternate energy source entered a major new phase.

PGV has been quietly producing geothermal-generated electricity for Hawaii Electric Light Company for years, working to be a good neighbor, and a steady supplier of power. Since becoming part of Ormat, a company with considerable depth in geothermal knowledge, PGV has undergone substantial upgrades.

At PGV, state-of-the-art technology generates power by tapping deep into the heart of the Big Island—to the vast underground cauldron of Kilauea’s volcanic heat—converting steam into electricity for Big Island residents.

Geothermal energy is a top source of renewable energy, better than solar or wind. When the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, the heat from the volcano continues to produce a steady flow of power.

Since Ormat acquired PGV in 2004, the facility has undergone a $32 million enhancement, returning the plant’s generating capacity to 30 megawatts (MW) and getting it ready for additional production. PGV saves the Hawaii Electric Light Company (HELCO) more than 400,000 barrels of imported oil a year, providing electricity for about 30,000 Big Island residents and visitors.

Powered by natural heat from the earth, PGV has provided stable, sustainable electricity for the Big Island for more than a decade. It generates about 20 percent of the electrical energy—and energy diversification—to that market under a Power Purchase Agreement with HELCO.

The underground geothermal resource at PGV has the capacity to generate considerably more. Geothermal has the potential to provide 100 percent of the Big Island’s electrical power needs. However, it is unlikely that the public utility would have all its generation depend on one resource.

PGV is poised to increase its electrical output another 8 megawatts, to 38 MW, providing greater stability and the potential for other uses. And, there’s still room to grow. Because PGV’s underground resource holds potentially 200 MW of renewable geothermal energy, PGV has the ability to expand its production to help meet the Big Island’s emerging energy needs.

The economic and social benefits could include:

• Further reduction of the Big Island’s dependence on fossil fuels
• Stimulation of cottage and light industries, such as seed germination or hydrogen fuel technology, that depend on direct heat applications or electrolysis.

Ormat Technologies has designed and built geothermal power plants around the world, currently producing in excess of 800 MW. Ormat’s acquisition of PGV brought the internationally recognized energy player to the Big Island as owner/operator. (Ormat’s high-tech equipment was used to build the facility in the 1990s.)

Hawaii geothermal story

Hawaii has always been at the forefront of designing creative energy solutions. In 1881 King David Kalakaua visited Thomas Edison in New York to discuss extracting power from Hawaii volcanoes and using underwater cables to carry power between islands. Apparently it didn’t prove feasible, and hydropower was used to generate electricity to light Honolulu, replacing kerosene lamps.

Because it is located above a volcanically active ìhot spotî in the earth’s mantle, Hawaii Island has the most potential of all the islands for geothermal energy both for electrical generation and direct uses. Geothermal energy anchors the Big Island’s growing list of possible sustainable, indigenous, diversified energy, which also includes wind, solar, ocean thermal and wave technologies. Geothermal produces 31 percent of the state’s renewable energy resources (second after waste-to-energy conversion at 58 percent), and the vast majority of the Big Island’s renewable power.

As a result, Hawaii County’s energy picture is bright compared to the electrical shortages of the early 1990s, when the Big Island suffered rolling brownouts because not enough power was being generated.

Still, Hawaii’s geothermal potential remains largely untapped.

Besides providing electrical power, geothermal could contribute to the manufacture of other technologies, such as hydrogen, or be a power source for ethanol manufacture. Offpeak energy could be transported to the National Energy Laboratory of Hawaii or elsewhere for demonstration projects. It could also provide direct heat applications.

It wasn’t easy for PGV’s operations to get started; geothermal production had a rough time gaining acceptance at first, despite its track record around the world.

Following the Arab oil embargo of the mid-1970s, America sought alternatives to oil. In Hawaii, tapping into the volcano seemed a natural. The state of Hawaii drilled an experimental well (HGP-A) in 1976 and a geothermal reservoir in the Kilauea East Rift Zone was uncovered. It was one of the hottest geothermal wells in the world. This test well was essentially a pipe punched into the ground—intended as a test, only a test. A few years later, July 1981, the US Department of Energy, the State of Hawaii and the County of Hawaii funded a 2.5 megawatt (it ended up at 3MW) power electric plant to use energy from the well to produce electricity. This, too, was intended as a test, only planned as a twoyear demonstration project. It was not built with the safeguards and abatements of a modern commercial unit.

Instead of two years, the plant operated for eight. As brownouts rolled across Hawaii, the small amount of power the HPG-A plant produced was sorely needed. Eventually in ’89, as HELCO developed more generating capacity, it was closed. The lessons learned were applied to future projects.

Geothermal is real, sustainable and stable. Still, misconceptions persist. One common misconception is that Hawaiian groups still oppose geothermal; another misconception is that virgin rainforests are being destroyed by geothermal. Neither is the case.

As energy needs escalated in the 1990s, the operation drilled wells and began producing electricity at a site in Puna District in the East Rift Zone adjacent to Leilani Estates. There was some community opposition to the project based on initial drilling noise, and concerns that emissions were unhealthy.

PGV managers and operators persevered, fine-tuning and constantly upgrading the facility, proving a good neighbor. In 2002, a serious power drop was corrected by immediately drilling new production wells and upgrading injection wells. This sophisticated waste disposal technology captures the spent geothermal fluids, including hydrogen sulfide, and returns it to the earth’s interior without exposure to the open air or to nearby communities.

Today the PGV well field has five production wells and four injection wells, at depths between 4,000 and 7,000 feet.

PGV continues to be a good neighbor through local sponsorships and service to the community. A newsletter keeps neighbors and others informed of plant activities; a 24-hour company hotline is also available. Ormat/PGV consultant Barry Mizuno and plant manager Mike Kaleikini are well-respected members of the Big Island business community, and Mizuno’s reputation extends across the state. He serves on numerous business and community boards and is a member of the Hawaii Island Economic Development Board.

“PGV has taken its place among the island’s energy producers as a truly viable form of alternative energy—efficient, cost-effective, sustainable and environmentally friendly,” says Mizuno.

“PGV and Ormat see a prosperous Hawaii Island community that still has the essence that makes it a wonderful place, where there are beautiful beaches, strong agriculture, a place where people have better mobility because we have better technology behind us; where we have a much lighter footprint on the planet because we are living in efficient buildings, driving efficient cars, making our own power,” he says.

If PGV can help the process along, that’s what we seek to do.