Canadian renewable power producer Innergex Renewable Energy has secured power purchase agreements (PPA) with Hawaiian Electric Company for 2 of its solar and storage projects in Hawaii. Both the PPAs have 25-year validity.
The 2 projects are identified as 15 MW Barbers Point Solar Project with 4 hour/60 MWh battery energy storage on the island of Oahu, and 20 MW Kahana Solar Project with 4 hour/80 MWh of storage to come up on the island of Maui. Both the projects are expected to come online in 2023.
"Energy storage technologies have improved significantly over the recent years, and it is changing the way utilities can service their customers," said President and CEO of Innergex, Michel Letellier. "With four solar and energy storage projects under development in Hawaii, we are committed to becoming a strong partner in managing the renewable energy needs of Hawaiian Electric."
Innergex was one of the several companies that won Hawaiian Electric's competitive solar PV capacity auction to win 460 MW capacity on the islands of Oahu, Maui and Hawaii with 3 GWh of battery energy storage systems in June 2020 (see Winners List For 16 Hawaiian Electric PV Projects).
Hawaiian Electric separately announced submitting 8 contracts for new grid scale renewable energy and storage projects it awarded back then for review and approval of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). The 2 Innergex projects are also part of this review process. Once approved, all the combined projects are expected to lower electricity bills by $1.00 monthly on an average on the islands of Oahu and Maui.
The list of the 8 projects whose contracts are pending approval of the commission are listed by the utility on its website.
At the end of 2019, Hawaiian Electric says it had a total solar power capacity of 902 MW on its 5 island grids including around 684 MW of solar capacity from customer-sites rooftop solar systems whose number has now grown to over 85,000.
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