Megapacks Help Hawaii Kick Coal

Hawaii is finally getting rid of coal power.

The island state has been working for years now to phase out the incredibly dirty fuel source. Hawaiian Electric and other companies have been supplementing and building webs of power systems using batteries, mostly from Tesla.

But, recently Tesla has been contracted to bring in their gigantic Megapack systems so Hawaii can create a virtual power plant like Australia’s - but bigger.

The Kapolei Energy Storage facility (KES) will be one of the largest battery systems in the world, once completed, capable of storing 185 megawatts or 565 megawatt-hours.

Major partners Hawaiian Electric and Plus Power are intending to have the KES up and running in time for the last remaining coal plant on the island to be shut down in September, 2022.

The old coal plant was used to ensure grid stability - keeping the lights on when the solar generation systems couldn’t. But Tesla’s Megapacks can do that, no problem; and that’s exactly what the KES is for - taking the excess solar energy made during the day, and pumping it back out at night, or when it’s too cloudy for solar to operate.

The KES should also operate as a jumpstart to the system should a disaster force the whole system down.

This whole operation is part of Hawaii’s green initiative, the plan being to get to 100% green energy on the islands by 2045. The state already has the highest amount of solar power generated per capita, and the phasing out of coal was ready to happen with or without the KES.

Tesla’s Megapack farms have already done wonders for Australia, and we’re starting to see wider adoption of the systems in the States. The stabilising effect of a battery farm is the missing piece of the green energy puzzle; the thing that will allow us to finally wean off of dangerously polluting energy sources like coal, oil, and gas.

And while we can expect that other battery companies will someday catch up and begin building similar farms of their own, and increase the proliferation of this type of energy system, that could take awhile.

For now, Tesla leads the way.