The Molokaʻi community has turned energy planning upside down with a bottom-up planning process that's working and empowering the island to chart its own renewable energy future.
For years, Molokaʻi had a reputation for saying no to renewable energy — but not because residents didn't want it.
“Molokaʻi has had decades of community advocacy for energy needs,” said Leilani Chow, the 30-year-old mother of two from Molokaʻi who has been a leader in the island’s renewable energy advocacy.
“A lot of that advocacy looked like opposition to all of the projects that have been proposed. These projects are designed, proposed by off-island groups that were just severely misaligned with community values and lifestyle," Chow said.
Molokaʻi currently doesn't have utility-scale renewable energy projects and generates only 14% of its energy consumption from rooftop solar. But that’s about to change.
The community has created a roadmap to get them to 100% renewable energy with a series of projects designed by residents.
“In 2020, the Molokaʻi Clean Energy Hui formed, inspired by all these decades of community advocacy, but instead of being formed in opposition of a project we're trying to be more proactive,” Chow said.
The answer to that was to "huli the system" and try a completely different approach. Instead of the electric utility or a development company proposing projects to the community, Chow and others led a community-based process.
“That just kick-started our whole CERAP process, which is community-led, community-driven, community-initiated, renewable energy planning,” she said.
CERAP stands for Molokai Community Energy Resilience Action Plan. The effort is led by the Molokaʻi Clean Energy Hui under the local nonprofit Sustʻāinable Molokaʻi, where Chow works as an energy coordinator.
Two years ago, the Clean Energy Hui made a big request to the state Public Utilities Commission. They asked the PUC to temporarily suspend a procurement and planning docket related to energy development on Molokaʻi.
“And we did that and it was to allow this planning process to happen,” said Mike Wallerstein, commission counsel for the PUC.
“And so for almost two years, the commission was basically not involved at all, other than letting the process happen,” he said.
Since then, the community planning process has been in hyperdrive.
Clean Energy Hui members held nearly 3,000 community conversations, collected 700 surveys, and conducted more than 30 focus group workshops and 17 community events. They educated themselves on renewable energy options and processes, gathered community feedback, and incorporated it into a comprehensive island-wide energy plan.
They partnered with the University of Hawaiʻi’s Natural Energy Institute for technical assistance and value analyses, as well as worked with Hawaiian Electric and other Molokaʻi energy organizations.
One of those is Hoʻāhu Energy Cooperative Molokaʻi, which has two solar projects that will provide about 20% of the island’s daily energy generation in the near future.
Phase one of the CERAP process wrapped up over the summer and the Clean Energy Hui submitted the plan to the PUC. Last month, they updated commissioners and energy officials in a status conference.
Wallerstein said Molokaʻi’s planning effort is noteworthy.
“It's the first of its kind, certainly in this state and as far as I know, in the country, of a community leading the electricity planning process,” he said.
“It's almost always led by a utility and overseen by a commission. But this is very different, so it's very interesting to see what the community did when they were in charge of the planning.”
Molokaʻi’s energy projects focus on increasing the island’s emergency preparedness by strategically decentralizing energy generation and strengthening critical infrastructure.
All 10 of their proposed projects have been picked up for state and federal support.
A federal Department of Energy grant through the Energy Transition Initiative Partnership Project will provide expert technical support to explore specific projects over the next year.
Another Department of Energy program, Clean Energy to Communities, will provide planning and implantation phases for Molokaʻi energy projects over the next three years.
Along with larger-scale solar projects, the programs will be exploring other options like floating solar on an existing 95-acre reservoir and a potential pumped hydroelectric energy storage project.
The process has also shown other communities what's possible, and Chow said there’s been interest in using Molokaʻi’s process as a template for community energy planning statewide.
“It represents that community is able to become energy experts and has the competency and eagerness to take on this kind of planning,” she said.
“This is showing that community-led processes like this are extremely successful and the results — the projects that were proposed — were win-win for everybody.”
