Life-changing. That's how one Molokaʻi homesteader described his new renewable energy system.
“It's amazing, life-changer for us,” said Hoʻolehua resident Mike Lucas. He and his family live on a long, dirt road with no access to Hawaiian Electric's infrastructure. For the past decade, they've used a generator for all their electricity.
“I start the generator at 6 in the evening, and then I have to remember to turn it off before I go to sleep, or else, you know, the generator just dies off,” he said.
Lucas learned to fix and maintain generators. But despite that, “We get one graveyard of generators under the house,” he said.
According to Lucas, they paid $30 every few days to refill gas.
But that all changed when they were selected as one of 14 households on Molokaʻi for installation of a solar and battery storage nanogrid.
“The nanogrid is basically just a teeny, tiny version of a regular grid,” said Leilani Chow, projects coordinator of Hoʻāhu Energy Cooperative Molokaʻi. “You have the panels to make the energy, you have the inverter to convert it and help balance it, and then you have the battery piece.”
Hoʻāhu implements equitable and community-based renewable energy projects for the island — and spearheaded the nanogrid project.
Like Lucas, many off-grid families on Molokaʻi operate with generator power only, or a combination of outdated rooftop solar systems.
Chow said cost is often a barrier for residents to upgrade. She quoted $14,000 per power pole to run a line to a remote residence — if they can connect at all. And the nanogrids aren’t cheap, either.
“These systems that came out of the program were, on average, about $33,000,” Chow said.
With federal financial assistance from the Department of Energy, technical and design support as well as funding were funneled through Sandia National Laboratories and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Hoʻāhu owns the nanogrid systems and finances them over 10 years at a cost of around $140 per month to participants. After that, residents own the system.
Chow said many of these families were averaging $500 per month in gas to live off-grid. One large family paid much more.
“They were paying like, $900 a month in filling propane, filling gas for the generator and ice to keep their food cold,” Chow explained.
Hawaiian homesteader Cheryl Sterner and her husband have lived off-grid for more than 20 years.
“We always had the problem of we needed to make sure that everything we used, we were very conscientious about our energy consumption,” she said.
Their nanogrid was completed last week. Each system is custom-built by an all-Molokaʻi installation team led by Joe Howe of Howe Energy LLC.
“For cleaning the house, it was always sweeping, but now I can actually plug my vacuum in and vacuum the house, and I don't have to start a generator up, you know? Yeah, that's nice,” Sterner said. “The conveniences of life.”
Now they have a fridge with an icemaker — something her husband was excited for — and Sterner doesn't have to start the generator to do a load of laundry.
“This is an awesome system. I can honestly say, on my many years of living off grid, these batteries are awesome,” Sterner said about the new battery storage as part of the nanogrid, which is contained in a stand-alone shed near her home. “I don't have to go underneath the house and do battery maintenance anymore.”
Lucas is also enjoying the small luxuries that many take for granted.
“Just the fact, turning your light switch on in the middle of the night is one big thing,” he said, “Instead of got to turn the generator on just to turn your lights on.”
“My wife, she likes to make smoothies in the morning, so I got to wake up and start the generator, and turn it off before we go work. So I get to sleep in now,” he laughed.
All 14 nanogrid systems are planned to be completed by next month.
The project came out of a community energy planning process, identifying the need for self-sufficiency and locally-driven initiatives.
“Hoʻāhu took the lead on developing a solution for our off-grid folks who are usually missed by like the larger energy projects, simply because they're not connected to the grid,” Chow told HPR.
Out of about 50 applications from residents across the island, Chow said the 14 nanogrid participants were chosen based on having kūpuna or keiki in the home, lack of access to the electric grid because of their location, those who have life-saving medical equipment requiring electricity, as well as consideration of their financial situations.
Chow said Hoʻāhu hopes that because of the high demand, they can expand the nanogrid program in the future.
Molokaʻi is one of the most energy-efficient communities.
“Molokaʻi definitely uses the least amount of energy per capita in the state and also in the rest of America, and our prices are amongst the highest,” Chow added.
In an effort to help reduce those costs, the cooperative is also in the permitting phase for several larger-scale community solar projects for Molokaʻi in the next few years.
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