April 17, 2012

Hawaii PUC directs renewables-related initiative for reliability standards

Since September of 2011, the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission has been directing an interesting working group initiative that may help establish some technical precedents for high penetration PV. The Reliability Standards Working Group (RSWG) was formed by the Hawaii PUC (under docket 2011-0206), to find solutions to integrating high penetrations of renewable energy consistent with…

Since September of 2011, the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission has been directing an interesting working group initiative that may help establish some technical precedents for high penetration PV. The Reliability Standards Working Group (RSWG) was formed by the Hawaii PUC (under docket 2011-0206), to find solutions to integrating high penetrations of renewable energy consistent with reliability and power quality standards.

Some of the important tasks of this group include: 1) developing technical reliability standards modeled on North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) standards; 2) developing an advanced ancillary service plan to integrate high penetrations of variable energy resources for the islands; and 3) developing protocols for telemetry/monitoring/control of DG facilities.