Having lived here all my life, I've been aware that the cost of living in Hawaii is one of the highest in the nation. There are many reasons on why energy is so expensive in Hawaii, but the main reason being our reliance on imported oil. As a result, the citizens of this state must make decisions today that will affect their livelihood for themselves and for future generations.
There are many challenges the Hawaii state government faces when having to deal with energy consumption. For example, each island in the state has its own power grid that does not allow for the transferring of energy produced from one island to another. Oahu consumes the most energy out of all the Hawaiian islands, and energy produced on other islands can be utilized on Oahu. On the mainland, one state can easily sell electricity to a neighboring state that needs it. This is facilitated by the fact that power generated on the mainland comes from a variety of natural resources such as coal and natural gas, thus decreasing the need for imported foreign oil.
To address these challenges, Hawaii's geographical location offers a huge renewable energy potential. The abundance of natural resources such as geothermal, water, and wind, allows us to exploit these resources quickly and effectively. Our small size is an advantage in that our energy consumption is relatively modest, so this would work well with renewable energy.
The Hawaii state government has made some progress to address these challenges with the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, where the state will try to achieve 70% clean energy by 2030. But to meet these requirements, we need to find ways to reduce our energy consumption today, and with tomorrow's technology we can expect to consume less energy than we do today. With that said, HNEI offers various devices to be installed into peoples homes that will measure energy consumption that allows for two-way communication to a database off-site. This data is then made available to a website that allows residential customers to see their energy consumption which can educate them on how to adjust their needs with respect to power usage. For example, a device called a smart thermostat, interacts with an A/C unit that shuts it off periodically to conserve energy when the temperature sample is at a comfortable level. In effect, if enough of these devices are being used then the energy savings would be huge to the customers and the amount of energy demand on the electric companies would go down. Another huge potential with this type of technology is the ability to use this data to model energy usage and if there is time during the day where there is excess energy produced as a result of lower energy demand, this type of information can be communicated to customers that would allow them to utilize this free excess energy to fulfill their needs.
Here on the University of Hawaii at Manoa campus, Kuykendall Hall is going through a building renovation to facilitate the measurement of energy usage and environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, air flow, and radiant heat. This information is used to to help engineers design buildings that are environmentally neutral where power consumption is lower as a result of smart building design that allows for better lighting and cooling. With the installation of these metering devices, there is an opportunity for software developers with an interest in clean energy to design software that can process the data collected to help people make better decisions with respect to building design.
Going forward, we can lower our consumption of energy with the help of HNEI. If demand response devices are installed into everyones homes, then that will certainly help us achieve that goal of 70% clean energy. All of this is facilitated by the development of good software to help manage data these devices measure that will allow people to make better decisions when dealing with energy consumption.
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