POWER November 2015 - 54

FUEL SUPPLIES
ern California coast. " What the Capstone
microturbines are doing for Southern California
Edison on Catalina Island is allowing
us to meet the island electrical demand and
frequency moment by moment, perfectly, "
said Ronald Hite, a Southern California
Edison district manager. What prompted the
switch from historically used diesel internal
combustion engines are new air quality
standards, Hite explained. The new standards
would have required the company to
install selective catalytic reduction (SCR)
units on the diesel engines, which then limited
their output. " We needed to bring in
some form of generation that is quickly and
easily dispatched in small increments, " he
said. Propane is brought to the island twice
a week by barge that fills the storage tanks;
the propane is vaporized before it is fed to
the microturbines, Hite added.
Cleaner Diesel Engines
While change is clearly afoot on the island
scene (see sidebar, " Beyone Diesel " ), diesel engines
aren't going to fade into oblivion anytime
soon. They are the generator of choice for larger
installations.
Wärtsilä recently made a deal to extend
the six-unit Pockwood Pond Power Generating
Station in the British Virgin Islands with
two gensets running on light fuel oil. When
completed in late 2016, the 50-MW plant
located on the main island of Tortola will
supply 100% of the British Virgin Island's
electricity, including for its 11 islets (via submarine
cables).
Meanwhile, MAN Diesel & Turbo in June
2015 officially inaugurated a 210-MW engineoperated
power plant on the Caribbean island of
Beyond Diesel
Here are some more innovative ways islanders
are generating power while rejecting
costly diesel imports:
■ Remote villages in the Pacific island nations
of Timor-Leste and the Solomon
Islands are using locally harvested and
processed coconut oil to fuel two Caterpillar
Olympian generators supplied
by Australian specialized Cat engine
dealer Energy Power Systems Australia
in 2013. Developers say a small system
can provide power with an average usage
of only three coconuts per kWh-
with virtually no emissions.
■ The 11-MW Kaféate wind farm on the
Pacific island of New Caledonia has 42
Vergnet anti-cyclone wind turbines. In
the event of a cyclone, the tower can
be tilted and attached to the ground in
order to protect the turbine.
■ Kodiak Island (Figure 5) in southern
Alaska this May began producing 99.7%
of its power using only wind and hydro,
eliminating imports of about 3 million
gallons of diesel a year. The 28-MW island
system uses two 1.5-MW battery
systems to help manage intermittenGuadeloupe
for French utility EDF (Figure 4).
Since 2008, MAN Diesel has commissioned
similar plants (though on a smaller
18.5-MW scale) on La Réunion, Corsica,
4. State-of-the-art diesel power. The 210-MW Pointe Jarry power station handed
over to French utility EDF by MAN Diesel & Turbo on the Caribbean Island of Guadeloupe this
June comprises a dozen 18V48/60 engines. It replaces a 30-year-old plant-cutting fuel consumption
by 15% and nitrogen oxide emissions by 85%-and is large enough to cover 45% of
the island's energy needs. Courtesy: MAN Diesel & Turbo
5. Microgrid. Kodiak Island, off Alaska's
south coast, is the second-largest island in
the U.S. The Kodiak Electric Association, an
electric cooperative owned by the island's
15,000 residents, has shunned costly diesel
imports and designed a system that
uses only wind, hydro, and battery storage.
Courtesy: ABB
cies. Plans are under way for a crane
upgrade at the port and for installation
of an ABB integrated commercial flywheel
technology to enable the addition
of more renewable energy from an
expansion at the 9-MW wind farm.
■ Since 2009, the Réunion Island University,
the Réunion Island Local Authorities,
and DCNS have worked toward the
deployment of ocean thermal energy
conversion (OTEC) technology in tropical
regions by constructing a non-experimental
OTEC plant in Réunion.
and Martinique islands for EDF. The newly
inaugurated Point Jarry plant on Guadeloupe
Island isn't your run-of-the-mill diesel installation,
noted Dr. Hermann Kröger, head
of MAN's power plants business unit, in a
statement. " The plant achieves a technical
and environmental standard that is seldom
seen in the field of diesel power stations, " he
said. " SCR catalytic converter technology
and urea injection deliver significantly reduced
toxic emissions, while the dedicated
seawater desalination plant allows 700,000
tonnes of valuable drinking water to be
saved every year. "
Significantly, the plant will provide baseload
power to the island that is remarkably
outfitted with renewable installations. Wind,
geothermal, solar, and bagasse produce about
17% of the island's total power. French law
requires EDF to buy power from any interconnected
renewable generator, but owing
to concerns about grid stability and the variability
of renewable sources, it restricts the
amount of wind and solar supplying the grid
at any given instant. For EDF, having backup
power is imperative. ■
-Sonal Patel is a POWER associate
editor.
54
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POWER November 2015

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