HALEIWA—Oahu’s North Shore. The land of surf, country living, and ... giant wind turbines?

First Wind, a Massachusetts-based independent North American wind energy company, is planning to construct a clean energy wind farm in Kawailoa on the North Shore. The clean energy farm will be located approximately one mile mauka of Kamehameha Highway, and will have 30 wind turbines that are estimated to have the capacity to service approximately 15,000 homes. The Kawailoa site will be the company’s second on the North Shore following the construction of Kahuku Wind.

“Kahuku Wind is great, but it only scratches the surface of the amount of energy we use on Oahu. [Kahuku Wind] provides two to four percent of the energy on Oahu, and the Kawailoa sight will produce more,” First Wind representative Wren Wescoatt said on Monday.

In July, First Wind broke ground in Kahuku, building the first wind farm Oahu had seen in approximately 20 years on the company’s 575 acre parcel near Charlie Road, between Kahuku Town and Turtle Bay, mauka of Kamehameha Highway. Kahuku Wind consists of 12 wind turbines and a microwave communication tower that is 30 feet high. The Kahuku site has the capacity to produce enough energy to power the equivalent of 7,700 Oahu homes.

According to Wescoatt, the turbines at the Kawailoa site will be of “slightly smaller capacity than the turbines in Kahuku.” The turbine blades in Kahuku measure up to about 15 feet each. The Kahuku site has a 2.3 MW capacity. First Wind’s turbines are manufactured by Clipper Liberty, a wind energy technology company.

The planned wind farm in Kawailoa will be constructed on property owned by Kamehameha Schools, who will continue to hold title to the land. It will not be sold to First Wind, Wescoatt said.

In March of this year, Kamehameha Schools offered First Wind a location on their Kawailoa property to place a 220-foot high tower as part of a communication system for Kahuku Wind. Wescoatt said Kamehameha Schools was happy to open the land to First Wind in support of renewable energy.

“We were looking for other places to potentially put the farm, but this property is a great place. It’s former sugar cane land,” Wescoatt said.

First Wind is currently focusing on developing wind farms in the northeastern and western regions of the continental United States and Hawaii. In addition to Kahuku Wind, they have one wind farm currently operating on Maui called Kaheawa Wind that generates 30 megawatts (MW) of energy, providing up to nine percent of the electricity distributed by Maui Electric Company, and are developing Kaheawa II, which is expected to generate 21 MW of energy. The company altogether produces 478 MW of energy through six operating wind farms throughout Hawaii, Utah, New York, and Maine.

Unlike fossil fuels, wind energy does not pollute the earth nor cause carbon emissions that contribute to the growing problem of global warming. Under the energy agreement signed between the State of Hawaii and Hawaiian Electric in October 2008 as part of the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, Hawaiian Electric committed to increasing renewable energy statewide by 1,100 megawatts by 2030.

RMT Inc., an energy and environmental company, was chosen by First Wind to construct the Kahuku Farm. First Wind is still in the process of choosing a company to construct the Kawailoa farm. First Wind is initially planning to begin construction in 2012.

“We have another year or so with the permitting process,” Wescoatt said, adding that the permitting process is “never a sure thing.”

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Background & Related Stories

Background

Hawaii wind power

A State mandate says that, by 2030, 40 percent of Hawaii’s electricity will be derived from renewable sources. In order to meet that goal, the State is considering a plan that includes building a wind farm consisting of 200 turbines, each over 400 feet tall, on Lanai to power Oahu.

The Hawaii Interisland Renewable Energy Program (HIREP) would produce renewable energy through the use of wind turbine technology on one or more Hawaiian Islands and transfer the electricity generated to another island or islands by means of one or more undersea cables for subsequent transmission and distribution to energy consumers.

Implementation of the proposed wind energy program would be a cooperative effort of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the State of Hawaii, represented by the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT), to advance the objectives of the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative (HCEI), a partnership between the State of Hawaii and DOE with a goal of instituting a fundamental and sustained transformation in the way in which renewable energy resources are planned and used in the state.

In a letter send out to Lanai residents, Friends of Lanai state: “If the proposed industrial wind power plant for Oahu is built on Lanai, the destruction of our island is forever. It is irrevocable; we will not get our land back. Once the new roads are in, the massive holes dug, hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of concrete poured, and the 410 foot tall turbines erected, future generations of Lanaians will never again see the magnificent view planes, the rich cultural sites and the abundant game everyone who lives and visits Lanai enjoys today. They would be gone forever.”

On Oahu, Kahuku Wind (KW), the first wind farm on the island in over 20 years, went live in March. The farm will generate enough energy to power approximately 7,700 Oahu homes.

The Kahuku site, known as one of the windiest areas on the island, will supply approximately two to three percent of Oahu’s energy needs. First Wind had explored two other locations for their first Oahu farm, including Kaena Point. But after installing meteorological towers that measure wind speed and consistency at the Kahuku property, Kahuku proved to be the ideal location.

The 410-foot tall turbines that currently dot the property are estimated to last approximately 20 years. After that, the stainless steel, balsa wood, and fiber glass turbines that are produced in Idaho by Clipper Liberty, will be scrapped and replaced with new ones.

In the development phases of Kahuku Wind, Oahu residents were concerned about the farm being located too close to their homes, thus decreasing their property value, and being an eyesore. In August 2010, North Shore residents complained about the bumper-to-bumper traffic caused as turbine parts were being transported to the Kahuku Wind site for construction. Kahuku wind ultimately changed the transport times to avoid rush-hour traffic in the area.