Renewable Energy Technology Assessments - Kauai Island Utility ...

Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative
Renewable Energy Technology Assessments 9.0 Wind
Wind farms near Omao, Hanapepe, or Maha’ulepu would be similar to the
Anahola installation involving road construction, ridgeline turbine placement, and short
transmission extensions.
A wind plant near Poipu would be similar to the Kalaheo project in that it would
involve installation of turbines along flat terrain near the coast. It seems the best wind
site is further from main transmission lines than at Kalaheo, so either a transmission
extension or an upgrade of distribution lines leading to the wind site is needed.
A distributed wind development would likely involve single turbines and/or small
groups of turbines at several of the following locations: along the ridge in the Kokee area
(investigated here), south of the Port Allen airport, the point north of Kilauea, the
ridgeline north of Hanamaulu, individual locations scattered in the Poipu and Kalaheo
areas, and potentially smaller developments on the six sites described above. Turbines or
groups of turbines would be connected to distribution lines via individual transformers.
Land ownership would be mixed.
9.5 Power and Energy Production
The available wind data is not sufficient for a decisive assessment of energy
production. Collection of wind data at 50 meters at prospective sites should be the first
step in further pursuing wind power on Kauai. The available data along with the wind
maps does give some indication of potential energy production, and Black & Veatch has
made an analysis appropriate to the quality of data to give an indication of energy
production potential. Use of 10 (or 3 in the case of Kokee) Vestas V47s with a 50 meter
hub height has been assumed in all the analyses.
9.5.1 Plant Performance
Average wind speeds at the three sites where data is available varied in both
pattern and intensity, as summarized in Figure 9-7. This data needed to be assessed for
application at the actual project areas. Because the Kalaheo and Anahola potential wind
energy development sites are significantly far from their respective wind data towers,
Black & Veatch utilized the wind map to approximate the ratio of wind speeds between
the data location and the proposed turbine location. Furthermore, as the wind data
collected at all three sites were lower than the proposed wind turbine’s hub height, wind
speeds were adjusted upward to 50 meters using a wind sheer factor of 0.1 for the two
ridgeline sites (Anahola and Hanapepe) and 0.18 for the relatively flat costal site
(Kalaheo). It can be seen in Figure 9-8 that the intensity is similar for these three wind
sites but the distribution differences remain.
21 March 2005 9-16 Black & Veatch