Hawaiian Electric is dedicated to providing clean, reliable, and affordable energy to its customers and communities. To reach this goal, the company has proposed a company-wide transition to a new DR portfolio. This portfolio will include energy storage technologies that can help balance out intermittent generation from renewable energy sources and improve the dependable operation of the power grid. Energy storage can provide ancillary services such as Volt-VAR control, frequency regulation, and the provision of contingency reserves.
This increase in operational flexibility will support the integration of additional renewable resources and address the changing energy demand profile created by the growth of distributed resources. Hawaiian Electric is also assessing energy storage technologies and applications in tandem with ongoing evaluations to increase the operational flexibility of generating units, the development of operational and planning tools, and the development of DR. Hawaiian Electric is taking steps to ensure a high level of system reliability under the new regime of increased renewable capacity. The company is using both generation units and grid service resources, such as energy storage technologies, and DR to maintain grid reliability and securely integrate cost-effective renewable energy into utility grids.
