KAPAIA – It’s the biggest construction site you’ve never seen. In a former canefield off Ma’alo Road (the road to the Wailua Falls lookout), nearly 100 men and women are toiling to complete the Lihue Energy Service Center (LESC), site
KAPAIA – It’s the biggest construction site you’ve never seen.
In a former canefield off Ma’alo Road (the road to the Wailua Falls lookout), nearly 100 men and women are toiling to complete the Lihue Energy Service Center (LESC), site of what will be the island’s first new power plant since 1991. Construction is expected to be completed in June.
While the controversial power plant drew lots of criticism and court challenges, and was the subject of heated public hearings before the county Planning Commission and other bodies, the fact remains that other than Kauai Electric workers and construction crews, only a handful of other people have ever been to the site.
Called Field 390 because that’s what Lihue Plantation called it when it was one of the company’s most productive sugar fields, the site was one of three KE considered for the LESC.
Nearly all of the KE portions of the LESC are finished, said Dave Morgan, KE manager.
The KE portions include an 11,500-foot-long underground water line stretching from Kapaia Reservoir through the site and on to De Mello Reservoir; a switchyard; transmission line; stormwater pooling area; and the fenced, landscaped, 14.5-acre LESC itself.
The Kauai Power Partners electric-generating unit, the parts of which are slowly headed for the island from manufacturers around the world, is the sixth and final component of the first phase, a 26.4-megawatt unit which will more than replace the power generated by the power plant at the Lihue Plantation mill in Lihu’e.
Amfac Sugar Kauai’s contract with Kauai Electric ends this year. The company shut down their sugar growing and milling operations at Lihue Plantation and Kekaha Sugar in November 2000 but still owns and operate the power plant at the mill in Lihu’e.
The KPP combustion turbine is on its way from Norway, a generator is coming from England, a steam boiler is en route from Canada, a transformer is coming from Taiwan, and the control room is on the way from Texas, said Morgan of the virtual “United Nations.” Once linked together and operating the machinery will be capable of generating a significant percentage of electrical power used on the island.
Fuel trucks will begin rolling through the Isenberg Tract subdivision as early as next month, delivering diesel and naphtha to the site. KPP expects to use water to check for leaks in eight tanks either finished or currently under construction at the site (two for water, three for diesel and three for naphtha), and will likely fire up the power plant for testing purposes in June in anticipation of going online Monday, July 1.
KPP has a 25-year lease on 2.2 acres of the LESC site, which is owned by KE. Other than KE’s one-acre switchyard, which was designed to accommodate future loads and needs without additional physical expansion, the rest of the site will be mostly grass.
It is mostly mud now, a typical construction zone. Missing, for now, is a smokestack that remains a bone of contention to some Isenberg Tract residents, though if it is just 50 feet tall and surrounding vegetation grows as planned to 55 feet, the visual impacts may be minimal.
The water tanks at the site are needed for generating electricity, as the chosen generation mode, injection of fuel and steam that yields lower emissions and higher efficiency, requires lots of water, Morgan explained.
Ron Agor of Agor Architecture designed the KPP main building, which will house offices, a control room, maintenance garage and related areas.
Morgan proudly points out that the entire LESC project will be built without requiring a customer rate increase.
With the KPP unit coming online, KE shouldn’t need any new power-generating equipment until after 2012, assuming an energy consumption growth rate of 2.5 percent a year and continued operation of all the Port Allen generation units, Morgan said.
The all-time peak in terms of use of electricity on Kaua’i was a day in November of 1998, when 72 megawatts were used. The total KE system, with the KPP unit up and the LP power plant down, will have a generating capacity of over 120 megawatts.
Out of public concern for safety of seabirds thought to nest in the area, KE re-engineered its transmission line from LESC to the Isenberg subdivision. The line was originally designed to be 105 feet tall, but has been cut down to 55 feet tall to be much lower than the altitudes where the endangered seabirds cruise at night, Morgan said.
Amfac has already sold the former LP lands it owned, to Steve Case’s Lihue Land Company, and KE owns two former LP hydroelectric power systems on that land. Amfac will also soon yield its irrigation-ditch-maintenance duties to an Eastside users’ cooperative.
The two hydroelectric systems, which generate around 700 kilowatts of power and are rated to produce up to 1,300 kilowatts, have their power lines now running to the former LP power plant. Once the LP power plant shuts down at the end of December, the hydropower will be diverted into LESC.
KE also gets around three megawatts of power from the former McBryde Sugar Company hydroelectric plant owned by Alexander & Baldwin and located along the Wainiha River. This plant was built in the early 1900s.
Morgan said KE has no interest in operating the former LP power plant, which even when it was burning lots of bagasse, a byproduct of the sugarcane harvesting process, was not particularly efficient.
“We have an interest in getting KPP online, and shutting down LP,” he said.
KE also buys some excess power from Gay & Robinson, the island’s remaining sugar company, when G&R is in its harvesting mode.
The last power-generating units to be installed before KPP were two diesel units, each generating around 7.85 megawatts, at Port Allen in 1991. Another pair of similar-sized units went in the year before.
The oldest units at Port Allen, installed in 1964, are KE’s two smallest diesel units, and run only one or two hours a day, and only on certain days.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
