Hawaiian Electric Co. will soon start testing a smart-grid program on Oahu that will wirelessly transmit real-time information on customers’ electricity use to the utility, allowing HECO to integrate more renewable energy into its grid and respond faster to power failures.

The test, which involves 5,200 homes in six neighborhoods from Pearl City to Kahala, is a precursor to an eventual expansion of smart grid technology to the rest of Oahu, as well as Maui County and Hawaii island, by 2018, HECO officials said Monday.

One of the major components of the $10.4 million test project is a network of advanced electrical meters that will give HECO access to vital information about the amount of electricity that is being used by customers to help the utility better manage the flow of electricity on its grids. The smart meter also eliminates the need for a HECO employee to read the meter at the customer’s home to determine usage.

A similar program started by the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative in 2012 led to opposition from consumers concerned about invasion of their privacy from collecting real-time data on usage and the health effects from radio waves emanating from the wireless smart meters.

The electric utility on Kauai allowed customers to defer the installation of smart meters at no cost when it launched the program. However, it later received regulatory approval to charge $10.27 a month to customers who choose not to use a wireless smart meter, to cover the cost of sending out an employee to read the meter in person. About 10 percent of the KIUC’s 30,000 members opted out of having a smart meter.

HECO did not give an estimate for how much the systemwide smart grid project would cost. However, the state Public Utilities Commission rejected a similar plan from HECO in 2010, saying the $115 million price tag was too much for residential and business customers to pay. HECO will eventually need to retrieve the cost of the upgrade from its approximately 440,000 ratepayers statewide.

As for the concerns raised on Kauai about health, HECO said research conducted by the Federal Communications Commission, the Electric Power Research Institute, the Utilities Telecom Council and others found no negative health impacts from digital meters. The radio frequencies emitted by digital meters fall well below the maximum recommended in federal guidelines, HECO said. The utility also said it has gone to great lengths to protect the privacy of its customers in the past and will continue to do so.

The test project will cover Moanalua Valley and parts of Pearl City, Diamond Head, Kaimuki, Kahala and Waikiki. HECO plans to begin installing the equipment in mid-April and be finished by the end of July. 

HECO will conduct community outreach, including mailings and open houses where customers can get more information and talk to utility representatives directly.

Customers are being given the option of deferring the installation of a smart meter and remain on their old meters during this initial phase of the project, according to HECO spokesman Darren Pai.

"There is no charge for a deferral at this time. As we work through the development of the smart grid, customers will be notified prior to any fees that may be charged and provided with options at that time," Pai said.

Customers opting for the smart meters will have access to a customized Web portal that will provide them with daily updates about their energy usage to help them make "informed decisions" about better managing their energy use and electricity bills, according to HECO.

The utility will install 15 relay stations in the six communities to gather the information transmitted by customers’ smart meters. The information will be relayed to HECO’s headquarters "several" times a day, a HECO spokesman said.

The smart grid will also allow HECO to pinpoint outages before customers call to complain. Once identified, HECO may be able to restore power by rerouting around the outage or, if needed, can use the smart grid to direct repair crews to the exact location of the problem for faster repairs. The smart grid includes wireless relays, sensors to improve outage detection, and automated system controls to improve power restoration.

"We are continuing to modernize the electrical system to provide a solid foundation for our community’s energy future. Our state needs modern electrical grids to further improve service, provide customers with more choices and integrate more low-cost renewable energy to reduce Hawaii’s dependency on expensive imported oil," said Dan Giovanni, HECO senior vice president for operations.

The equipment being installed by HECO is a step toward grid modernization that will help address some of the issues preventing the utility from accommodating greater amounts of renewable energy on its grid, including solar power.

A surge in installation of rooftop photovoltaic panels in Hawaii over the past five years has created technical problems for HECO as it tries to absorb increasing amounts of the intermittent solar energy into its grid. One of the issues facing the utility is the lack of information about the amount of solar energy being produced on its circuits at any given time. A smart grid will help HECO better manage the volatility of the solar power.

"A smart grid is essential to achieving Hawaii’s clean-energy future," said Jeff Mikulina, chief executive officer of the Blue Planet Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to ending the use of fossil fuel in Hawaii. "As Hawaii generates more and more green electrons, we need modern infrastructure that’s capable of moving them around efficiently and reliably."

The technology also provides the foundation for future advances in energy conservation and efficiency, such as allowing customers to set up an "energy budgeting" program and giving HECO the ability to better monitor the amount of voltage needed on a given circuit, Mikulina said.

The utility plans to submit an application to the state Public Utilities Commission by the end of the year to expand the program across all of its service territory, which covers all of Oahu, Maui County and Hawaii island.

HECO has contracted with industry leader Silver Springs Network to develop the smart grid project. Silver Spring has been working with Hitachi since 2011 on a Japanese-U.S. collaborative smart grid demonstration project on Maui.

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