A new wind energy technology is on the horizon that may help Hawai‘i’s residents lower their place atop the government’s list of states that pay the most for electricity. Yuji Ohya, the chief of the Wind Engineering Section of Kyushu University in Japan is currently working on a 100 kilowatt wind turbine he calls the “Wind Lens.”
It has a rotor which spans 12.8 meters in diameter, reaches 34 meters high above the ground, and outputs two and a half times the amount of kilowatts per hour as conventional turbines of the same size, according to the Kyushu University Wind Engineering Section website.
Yuji Ohya’s Wind Lenses on the Ito Campus at Kyushu University.
Photo: (cc) Hot cake syrup
Reports from the U.S. Energy Information Administration website cite Hawaiʻi as the state with the highest cost per killowat hour at 25.13 cents/kwh while we rank as the 48th state for usage of electricity. Ohya’s technology creates the possibility to create energy at an estimated cost of .06 cents/kwh.
Not everyone is ready to let our energy funds slip away to big oil companies. Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) continues to battle for the “Big Wind” deal which aims to supply 25 percent of Hawaiʻi’s electricity needs and expunge the need to burn 2.8 million barrels of low sulfur fuel oil (LSFO) and 132,000 tons of coal each year according to The Oʻahu Wind Integration Study conducted by the Hawaiʻi Natural Energy Institute (HNEI) at the UH Mānoa, General Electric Company (GE).
The goal was to establish wind farms on Molokaʻi and Lanaʻi and route the energy through undersea cables to Oʻahu, until the Molokaʻi deal fell through after complications between the San Francisco based development company, Pattern Energy and Boston based development company, First Wind, who held the original 2007 contract.
In 2011 the Public Utilities Commission ruled that the agreement was not competitively bid by Hawaiian Electric Co., “but allowed it on the basis that they believed the project was in the public’s best interest,” according to Sophie Cocke, reporter for Honolulu Civil Beat.
Later that month, First Wind missed their deadline to secure Molokaʻi Ranch as their location for the “Big Wind” project site when several offers to purchase the land were turned down because former Molokaʻi Ranch CEO, Peter Nicholas announced he choose Pattern Energy as his preferred developer. After the First Wind development fell through Castle and Cooke ceded 200 mw of itʻs 400 mw allocation to San Franciscoʻs Pattern Energy. According to Cocke’s article published for Civil Beat, the PUC ruled that Castle & Cooke had no authority for this agreement albeit support from HECO for the deal to proceed.
According to the latest news, Civil Beat published that the Molokaʻi Wind Farm deal fell through after Molokaʻi Ranch CEO, Clay Rumbaoa, backed out of the deal to refocus on ranching operations.
HECO plans to release their delayed contract for renewable energy by mid 2013, but while negotiations continue prices of submarine cables rise and resources dwindle.
The American government is not far behind in the quest for renewable resources. President Obama announced in his 2011 State of the Union address to create 80 percent of the nation’s electricity from renewable energy sources by 2035, and has allocated $168 million over six years to The Department of Energy to fund our nation’s first offshore wind farms.
“Our goal is to lower costs, reduce pollution, and shift federal energy expenses away from oil and towards local, clean energy,” President Obama said in a statement for the New York Times.
New technology continues to grow but where does it fit in with money hungry developers and indecisive utility commissioners? If there are still hopes to refocus our demand for energy towards renewable resources then developers and researchers such as Ohya need to collaborate to produce progress. Ohya’s newest technology could mean another chance at reducing our dependency on foreign oil.
What makes the Japanese “Wind Lens” different from wind turbines used in America and turbines on the North Shore of O‘ahu, is the patented brim technology. According to the RIAM website, Ohya and his team have developed a diffuser and brim that create a low-pressure region behind the turbine when wind blows through.
The increased pressure difference creates more flow through the wind lens and two and a half times more kilowatts per hour output than conventional turbines.
Ohya has developed several sizes of high efficiency turbines including 10 5-kw turbines and two 70-kw turbines that have been implemented at the Ito campus of Kyushu University and produce 120,000 kwh annually.
Kyushu University’s Wind Engineering website describes problems faced by Ohya’s wind lens.
“Wind load on the wind-lens turbine is larger than [on] typical wind turbines; application of the wind lens to turbines in larger sizes faces structural challenges.”
But according to the Kyushu University’s website, Ohya and his team are making advances including the first test of an offshore Wind Lens farm consisting of a floating structure 18 meters in diameter which holds two wind lens turbines (3.4 meters in diameter and 3 kw) and solar panels installed 650 meters offshore in Hakata Bay, Japan. Ohya has not yet released a report on the cost and energy efficiency of his floating wind farm.
If developers and land owners cannot come to agree to work towards better energy costs for the state, then Ohya’s offshore Wind Lens farm may be a new approach. No land cost would result in lower energy costs and the visibility of the farms would not damage the inland coastal beauty.
Wind and Solar renewable sources are in future but we need to decide how soon it will be until the choice to switch is no longer ours to make. Efforts made by HECO to seek alternative energy contracts needs to be encouraged and new projects should be evaluated by individuals with an open mind. Complacency needs to be put aside to consider fresh possibilities, and now is the time.
More information about the Research Institute for Applied Mechanics (RIAM), and the Wind Engineering Section of the Division of Renewable Energy Dynamics can be found at: http://www.riam.kyushu-u.ac.jp/windeng/en_index.php.
Information about the Molokaʻi Wind Project:
http://www.hawaiisenergyfuture.com/articles/201100317_Wind_and_solar_can_supply_25__of_Oahu_electric_needs__joint_study_shows_News_Release.pdf
http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2011/07/15/12106-hawaii-puc-denies-molokai-big-wind-deal/
http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2013/02/07/18267-molokai-big-wind-deal-falls-apart/