In Hawaii, the sun provides huge opportunities for power—and electrical contractor D. Suehiro Electric Inc. (DSE) delivers that message to smaller and midsized businesses on the islands. But the Honolulu-based contractor doesn’t stop there. This team of about 50 electricians and 16 office workers, helmed by two brothers, believes the best way to explore and promote new ideas is to try them out personally. As a result, the company boasts a full microgrid system that powers its warehouse and office.

A microgrid is a local, single and controllable connection that stands alone and off the grid. DSE sees microgrid systems as an opportunity to sustain its own operations, which the company could install for other contractors and businesses. So the electrical contractor has built its own microgrid that powers its entire Honolulu facility and is granting tours to those who want to see just how it works.

The grid planning began years ago, recalled Daryl Suehiro, DSE’s president. It was part of a goal for the company’s new 13,000-square-foot warehouse and office space to be fully sustainable.

They installed a solar and battery backup system. The company then ran a wraparound lighting and wireless control system to ensure cost-effective and efficient intelligent lighting throughout its offices and warehouse. And they intend to build a similar system for IBEW Local 1186, also on Oahu.

Because the power is self-sustaining, the system is intended to lower power costs and ensure that the lights stay on, even during blackouts.

The changing needs of Hawaii

Sustainability and serving the changing needs of Hawaii has been central to what the company does since it was launched by Daryl Suehiro and his brother Keith Suehiro, vice president of field operations, 34 years ago. The midsized company provides services to general contractors, building owners, property management companies, architects and engineers.

DSE has worked on commercial projects ranging from office tenant improvements and retail to restaurant, warehouse, medical, dental and hospitality.

“We primarily focus on projects ranging from $25,000 to $10 million on both Oahu and Maui,” Daryl Suehiro said.

When the company started planning its new facility, the goal was to begin testing new innovations that could also be showcased. In a state vulnerable to extreme weather, “the whole idea was to be totally off the grid,” Suehiro said. “We wanted to have a showcase where we could show what microgrid battery storage and the integration with photovoltaic system could do.”

The installation began slowly, with multiple delays caused by equipment cost and availability, COVID-19, supply chain issues and timing based on rebates. After several years of work, the company is wrapping up the system this year.

The new building’s 268 solar panels are mounted on the roof and feed power down to a set of Tesla 58-kilowatt batteries in the mechanical room on the ground floor. The mechanical units all leverage variable-
speed drives.

The batteries can store enough power to operate the facility for several days, even if the solar panels generate nothing, though Suehiro said that it’s rare to go more than a couple days without sun in Hawaii.

But the company also wanted to ensure that the power being generated could be used efficiently, so they deployed advanced lighting controls. That effort is what led to the wrap-around wireless system with low-voltage connection. Users can control every fixture with an app on their phones to turn them on and off, dim or program them for automatic functions. DSE can set lights to automatically turn down, or off, if the building is unoccupied, and around specific hours.

Hawaii is leading some microgrid deployments. However, in most cases the work is not being done by electrical contractors, Suehiro said. Instead, utility and solar companies are doing the work for customers, especially in the residential space.

Small and midsized businesses poised to benefit

The companies most likely to benefit from microgrid networks tend to be midsized or smaller standalone businesses—think contractors, including plumbing, mechanical and electrical contractors interested in powering their own buildings, off-grid.

The Aloha State’s hotels, hospitals and similarly large facilities, on the other hand, use an enormous amount of power, but don’t have the space to install solar panels to support all that energy demand, not to mention batteries sizable enough to store it. Space is a unique challenge on the Hawaiian islands, where acreage is tightly used.

“We don’t have a lot of space to start solar panels out in the field—we just don’t have that luxury here in Hawaii,” Suehiro said.

That means using rooftops and covered parking, and making some compromises, such as limited systems that handle just part of a building (e.g., common areas of an apartment or condo building).

DSE doesn’t install solar power, but there are a variety of solar companies with installers who don’t require electricians’ skills. However, when a project has conduit demands, low-voltage wiring or grounding and bonding needs, they often turn to electricians or an electrical contractor. So providing a full microgrid system falls fully into the firm’s area of expertise.

“We will concentrate on the smaller businesses that will fully benefit from a system like this,” Suehiro said. 

In the meantime, DSE is waiting for the final pieces of equipment it needs for its own network. Until now, the various delays meant the company put the network together a piece at a time.

As it fully launches the system, the company will escort interested customers through the space, into the mechanical and conference rooms, where they can see—on five screens—just what every part of the system is doing.

There have been some challenges along the way, Suehiro said, including setting up the battery portion. 

“The solar panels were easy,” he said, adding that the slow delivery of the batteries and related components caused the most headaches. They then had to address further delays related to installing the batteries when they could take advantage of the tax credits available to them from the state.

The solar panels, on the other hand, came in quickly and were straightforward to install.

Hawaii leads in solar and microgrids

Unlike the other 49 states, Hawaii has faced unique challenges when it comes to energy. It is, for example, the most oil-dependent state in the country. With microgrids, many companies are poised to bypass the oil-based system and leverage the power of the sun.

The state’s largest electricity supplier, Hawaiian Electric, has other customers with microgrids in place, some considerably larger than DSE’s, including the Schofield Generating Station microgrid, which proved successful at powering up three Army installations during a major emergency.

“We also have a utility microgrid in Hana, Maui, which provides backup power to the Hana community, and a microgrid also is planned for North Kohala on Hawaii Island,” said Ken Aramaki, Hawaiian Electric’s director of transmission and distribution and interconnection planning.

Opportunities abound

There’s plenty more opportunity based on solar installations as well. Through its Distributed Energy Resources programs, Hawaiian Electric has 10,000 customers representing over 100 megawatts with solar-plus-battery systems that can provide energy to their own properties during an outage.

Through the U.S. Department of Energy’s inaugural Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project, Hawaiian Electric also has been working with some national labs (National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory) and the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute to develop a map, starting with Oahu, that customers can use to see if their area has the potential for microgrid development.

Despite those incentives, the initial investment is substantial and payback takes a while, Suehiro said. However, costs may be dropping. The battery set DSE purchased for its site has since come down in cost, according to the company. That may be good news for those wanting to install a similar system in the future. As battery technology advances, the hardware gets cheaper, and that trend is likely to continue as installations become more common.

“As we’re starting to talk to customers about microgrids, the cost is actually less than what we’ve paid,” Suehiro said, and “it’ll be easier for them to absorb that cost.”

Many companies are taking a wait-and-see approach, he said, “so we show them what the difference was for us, what we went from, what we paid for it,” and the cost reductions going forward. 

“It’s really a lot of baby steps,” Suehiro said. “The biggest challenge is really just showing people that it can be done. That’s the big step—getting people comfortable with the idea.”

The IBEW building in Honolulu will serve as another example of how a microgrid can succeed in a midsized facility with in-office activity and a warehouse area, once it is fully deployed.

In the meantime, Aramaki said, Hawaiian Electric will continue to work closely with other stakeholders to encourage microgrid development. Establishing microgrids using renewable resources aligns with Hawaiian Electric’s Climate Change Action Plan, which aims to reduce carbon emissions 70% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels, and achieve net-zero or net-negative emissions by 2045.

“Increasing reliability and resilience on our island grids is a key priority, and microgrids can play a pivotal role,” he said.

For contractors, although they may have fallen behind solar companies when it comes to such installations, the trends toward microgrids will bring demand to those with the competence and certification to do the full electric installation.

“At the end of the day, they still have to use electricity,” Suehiro said.

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