When John Sarter’s home was leveled by the wildfire that ripped through Lahaina, Hawaii, Aug. 8, 2023, he created a plan to rebuild it with a home microgrid comprised of solar, storage and bidirectional electric vehicles (EV) – a plan that he says can be replicated across Maui as it rebuilds its energy system and residents rebuild their homes.
The Lahaina Fire, the deadliest wildfire in the United States in more than a century and the fifth-deadliest on record since 1871. With the maximum of the network destroyed and one hundred known casualties, the death toll surpassed that of the Camp Fire in Paradise, California. which killed another 85 people in 2018.
Sarter, DCBEL’s West Coast appointment and operations manager, which supplies bi-directional chargers, will first acquire a small sun-powered wheeled space and add a larger solar canopy. He plans to buy a used Nissan Leaf with built-in bi-directional charging. capacity and add the DCBEL solar inverter, bi-directional charger and house energy control formula to force the house and the site of its structure, creating a microgrid.
DCBEL devices are qualified for grid interoperability, meaning they can export power from EVs to the grid so EV owners can make a profit in certain markets, Sarter said. The company’s power source kit can power a home for three days or more with the electric vehicle’s battery.
Along with the dcbel system, the Nissan Leaf will serve as your “power bank,” he said.
Sarter’s total allowance would be $99,800, plus $5,200 for a used Nissan Leaf, he said.
Once his new, permanent home is built, he plans on moving the dcbel home energy station to the main home and getting a smaller dcbel system for the tiny home, which can serve as an accessory dwelling unit. The tiny house could also be moved to another location to provide much needed affordable housing for the community, he said.
“If everyone does this, we’ll be able to rebuild faster and solve the housing crisis in Maui at the same time,” Sarter said.
Sarter works with Jennifer Potter, a former commissioner of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission and head of leading innovation at Strategen, a consulting firm focused on helping customers decarbonize. The two men want to put this plan into action on Maui while their formula is being rebuilt.
Potter receives $150,000 from the Hawaii Community Foundation and $1 million over five years from the U. S. Department of Energy’s Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project.
The grants would fund the Maui PowerBack task, which is a collaboration between West Maui and Maui citizens, as well as off-island experts who will read about tactics for creating “community-driven” electrical infrastructure. The task aims to build resilience and local generation. options, adding microgrids and vehicle-to-grid technology, according to a proposal from the Maui PowerBack allocation.
Project participants would conduct an initial six-month research that includes load and generation insights based on other resource characteristics with a focus on renewables. The task would also identify the investment characteristics as well as regulatory adjustments that would be needed to get the network up and running. plan. And the task would also look at opportunities for task creation and development, according to the task proposal.
“The city of Lahaina is lately kind of a blank slate that Hawaiian Electric [HECO] and the grid want to rebuild,” Sarter said. “And the point is to show them the right way to do it. This will charge them less in the long run and provide greater resiliency to the overall grid.
Residents rebuilding their homes could simply add solar and a two-way EV charger to their mortgages, which would be a small additional charge that would increase the resiliency of homes and the grid as a whole, he said.
Ideally, if citizens embraced this idea, Maui’s new energy formula would be fully distributed, with solar power on each and every rooftop, garage for each and every home, and two-way electric car hookups in each and every home, Potter said.
The grid could also install larger grid solar installations and long-duration electric garages.
The plan would necessarily come with enforcement power, Potter said. You may just be off the grid.
“There could be a private developer who comes in and helps with the development of a microgrid and basically interconnects to the utility as a backup,” said Potter.
Sarter said it was vital to get HECO involved; The application can simply locate new business models for the distributed formula, probably as a distributed formula operator.
“We still do need the grid and I think that the community should stay connected to the grid and be able to export to the grid and earn revenue,” Sarter said.
In the meantime, the app may simply prevent you from making such a large investment in power plants.
HECO warned that Lahaina’s electrical infrastructure could be rebuilt as a microgrid and deployed to invest in diesel turbines to power the microgrids, Sarter said.
“It seems crazy, in one of the sunniest places on the planet, to be using polluting and noisy diesel generators. Community solar and storage microgrids would make much more sense and be a far more sustainable solution for the future of Lahaina,” he said.
After its six-month study, the Maui PowerBack task would provide education and resources to help the citizens of West Maui create a community-centered energy plan for producing, distributing, and consuming energy, with the goal of supporting underserved communities. Participants would present their plan to the Hawaii Legislature.
“This would be a direct effort to rally the Lahaina community and, along with it, the rest of the Maui community to do community energy planning,” said Potter. The plan submitted to the legislature would identify options and the regulatory pathways needed to “really lift this development in an innovative way,” Potter said.
While the project could go ahead with or without HECO, it would not be complicated to involve HECO, given that it faces major challenges.
“HECO actually has a problem, a lot of problems to solve,” Sarter said. “So I think they’ll be more willing to work with other people in the communities to help expand those kinds of cutting-edge solutions. “
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I have been writing about energy for more than 20 years and my articles have appeared in EnergyBiz, SNL Financial, Mother Earth News, Natural Home Magazine, Horizon Air Magazine, Oregon Business, Open Spaces, Portland Tribune, The Oregonian, Renewable. Energy. World, Windpower Monthly and other publications. I was also a journalist for Platts/McGraw-Hill energy publications. I began my career covering energy and the surrounding areas for the Cape Cod Times, where Elisa Wood was also a reporter. I have won writing awards at the national, regional and local levels. organizations, including the Pacific Northwest Writers Association, Willamette Writers, Associated Oregon Industries and Voice of Youth Advocates. I became interested in power when I was a student at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where I helped design and build a sun house. .
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