WAINIHA — The Kaua‘i Coffee Company Wainiha hydroelectric plant recently completed replacement of its last piece of original equipment. The plant, which celebrated its centennial in 2006, provides the island 6 percent of its electricity, according to press releases from
WAINIHA — The Kaua‘i Coffee Company Wainiha hydroelectric plant recently completed replacement of its last piece of original equipment.
The plant, which celebrated its centennial in 2006, provides the island 6 percent of its electricity, according to press releases from supplier General Electric and Kaua‘i Coffee Company owner Alexander & Baldwin.
The new equipment replaced the mechanical fly ball governor system that regulates water flow and provides over-speed protection for the generators, said Dan Sargent, Kaua‘i Coffee Company electrical superintendent.
“Keeping these 100-year-old governors running efficiently and correctly was becoming increasingly difficult,” he said. “Malfunctions could have resulted in costly repairs to the system as well as costly downtime.”
Start-up time at the plant has moved from an average of four hours to just 10 minutes, according to the GE release.
In addition to the power sold to Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative, power generated by the Wainiha hydroelectric plant powers all of Kaua‘i Coffee Company’s operations, including the factory, visitor center and main offices in Numila.
The Wainiha station generates four megawatts.
Kahu Kauilani Kahalekai performed the traditional Hawaiian blessing on the new equipment and controls in June.
The new electronic/digital control system installed is more dependable, easier to maintain, more accurate and more efficient, allowing hundreds of thousands of additional kilowatt hours of electricity to be generated each year, according to information from A&B.
Power production is expected to increase 5 to 10 percent.
Excess power sold to KIUC is an important source of revenue for the company, said a company source.
“Even single-digit improvements in power revenue are meaningful,” said Kaua‘i Coffee General Manager Wayne Katayama. “Dan really pulled triple-duty in handling this upgrade project along with his other work.”
The new system completely automates all plant functions and allows for touch-screen operator interface, generator automatic online synchronization and monitoring of all the associated field devices.
It replaces the two, 100-year-old fly ball mechanical governors with a modern hydraulic-pressure unit. The heart of the GE Mark V1 E control system is a state-of-the-art CPU (central processing unit) that continually monitors and adjusts the generators for maximum efficiency.
This upgrade brought increased efficiency and reliability to the first hydroelectric plant ever built in Hawai‘i and still in operation today.
“The system and software ushers in a new era of power generation for this valuable company asset,” Sargent said.
The Wainiha plant staff also benefits from the ability to monitor and easily troubleshoot its system in real time, both on-site and remotely, contributing to plant productivity, maintainability and ease of operator training, according to the GE release.
The original 25-hertz generators were used to power irrigation pumps on land formerly known as McBryde Sugar, around Kalaheo, Numila, ‘Ele‘ele, Hanapepe, Koloa and Po‘ipu.
General Electric converted them to 60-hertz generators in 1929 for connection to the electrical grid.
