LIHU’E – The stress and body-heat levels decreased yesterday evening in the Kaua’i Electric administrative offices as the island’s voluntary reduction in power consumption helped prevent blackouts. KE officials could literally watch gauges drop as demand for electric use fell
LIHU’E – The stress and body-heat levels decreased yesterday evening in the Kaua’i Electric administrative offices as the island’s voluntary reduction in power consumption helped prevent blackouts.
KE officials could literally watch gauges drop as demand for electric use fell through the efforts of industry big and small, and individual customersI, said KE spokeswoman Jenny Fujita.
Working off its own power-generating unit and without the normal creature comforts of air-conditioned offices, KE staffers feverishly encouraged the largest customers to either use their own generators (emergency and otherwise) or reduce demand so the rest of the island could have power during yesterday’s peak period of 5 to 9 p.m.
Businesses from Mana to Hanalei responded to the call, according to Fujita.
At the same time, KE crews worked around the clock to fix broken power-generating units at Port Allen. By 7 p.m., the third and smallest unit was back on line.
With three of KE’s major power-producing generators down for expected and unexpected repairs, the island yesterday afternoon faced the real possibility of 30-minute rolling blackouts if large users and others didn’t successfully implement what KE calls “emergency load shedding.” In English, that means using less electricity.
The Lihu’e Plantation power plant provided above-capacity generation. It burned oil to generate as much power as possible to help avert a potential crisis.
Lihu’e Plantation did “an awesome job,” said Fujita, who relayed a few other strategies businesses did to help out:
• A Pacific Cafe in Kaua’i Village, Waipouli, offered outdoor candlelight dining.
• Several golf courses put off charging golf carts until after yesterday’s 9 p.m. usage peak.
• Burger King at Kukui Grove turned off its air-conditioning system.
• Various hotels turned off water features and all but essential safety lighting, raised temperatures on kitchen refrigerators and freezers, and switched to their own generator power where possible.
• The Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility and its Makaha Ridge operations supplied their own power via generators.
• Lihu’e Airport switched on its emergency generators to take a huge load off KE’s system.
From Tuesday, KE began asking its largest users to turn off unnecessary electric devices, and PMRF and the large hotels responded immediately, Fujita explained.
She said it helps that each of the island’s larger users (including The Garden Island, which has an emergency generator but wasn’t asked to use it last night) has a customer service representative assigned to it. And KE’s office and field employees were told of the potential blackouts, making them “ambassadors” for electrical conservation, she said.
As a result of last night’s close call, Fujita said KE will be able to update the company’s emergency load reduction plan and processes. This critique may help the company the next time such a crisis occurs, she said.
The last rolling blackouts were 10 years ago.
Since then, the company has been successful in avoiding such outages through voluntary load shedding alone, Fujita added.
Had the company had the planned Lihu’e Energy Service Center on-line yesterday, there would have been no near-crisis, she said.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
