Maui Smart Grid Project

The Maui Smart Grid Project will demonstrate and evaluate new technologies that will help residents better manage and reduce energy consumption during periods of high demand, and assist Maui Electric Co. (MECO) to operate the power grid more efficiently. These technologies will also help  to restore power outages faster and integrate more renewable energy into Maui’s electricity grid. If you are interested and participating and live in the Maui Meadows please check out: http://www.mauismartgrid.com/

Resource from: http://www.mauismartgrid.com/

"Clean Energy: Picking up the Pace in 2011"

Hawaiian Electric Company's latest newsletter featuring updated information on new technologies, customer projects, and the status of the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative.

 "Clean Energy: Picking up the Pace in 2011". Powerlines. Summer 2011.

Appropedia: The Sustainability Wiki

Mission: Sharing knowledge to build rich and sustainable lives.

Appropedia is the "Wikipedia" of sustainability. This internationally used site has information on all things sustainable such as detailed descriptions of the different renewable energy technologies, creative new RE inventions, and information on RE projects done all over the world. The name Appropedia comes from the idea of "Appropriate Tehnology". Below is a description of appropriate technology directly from the Appropedia website. Appropedia is a great place to share information and collaborate with others on renewable energy. It's a wiki so it is free to sign up and would be a perfect place to post projects you may have done with your students.

Appropriate technology (AT) is technology that is designed with special consideration to the context of its use - including environmental, ethical, cultural, social, political, and economical aspects of the community it is intended for. With these goals in mind, AT proponents claim their methods require fewer resources, are easier to maintain, and have less of an impact on the environment compared to techniques from mainstream technology, which they contend is wasteful and environmentally polluting.

The term is usually used to describe simple technologies proponents consider suitable for use in developing nations or less developed rural areas of industrialized nations. This form of "appropriate technology" usually prefers labor-intensive solutions over capital-intensive ones, although labor-saving devices are also used where this does not mean high capital or maintenance cost. In practice, appropriate technology is often something described as using the simplest level of technology that can effectively achieve the intended purpose in a particular location. In industrialized nations, the term appropriate technology takes a different meaning, often referring to engineering that takes special consideration of its social and environmental ramifications.

Haleakala Solar is installing what will be the largest commercial PV power generation system in Maui County

AAAA - Rent-A-Space in Honokowai, Maui will be builiding a 600-kilowatt rooftop system. It will be the largest commercial photovoltaic power system in Maui County. Construction will begin in September 2011. To read more see link from Pacific Business News http://bit.ly/qHdxNG

Another Successful Summer Camp

This past week Central Maui Complex celebrated their annual professional development summer camp for teachers. The Island Energy Inquiry curriculum was a content piece highlighted through this three day event. Teachers from all over Maui were given an opportunity to interact with the curriculum as well as incorporated into their unit planning for the upcoming school year. Teachers were also given the opportunity to schedule follow up sessions at their school site, were more hands on sessions will be conducted. All and all a great three days of planning, building, collaborating and productivity.

Punahou Summer Lab School

Educator's Energy Exchange group focused on sustainable energy curriculum development for DOE schools. The sessions went extremely well and the teachers all left with materials to implement the curriculum in their own classrooms. Overall, the things we learned from this experience is that the teachers valued the opportunity to try the lessons on their own, collaborate with teachers from other schools, and get ideas on how they can expand their own knowledge of the content.

Next year, the Lab School will continue this practice with more sustainability issues. If anyone is interested, please contact Punahou School.

Island Energy Inquiry Leadership Seminar

Educators from all over the islands gathered here at our MEDB Lab in Kihei, Maui to learn about and participate in activities related to renewable energy, in hopes of adding these activities to their current curriculum. The Island Energy Inquiry program is led by Diana Papini-Warren, a project manager for Women in Technology and MEDB. This is a compilation of pictures taken by the IEI leaders during the workshop this past June. Each participant was lent their own personal Ipod Touch to take pictures of various renewable energy activities throughout the day. They completed a couple of wind turbine projects and also a solar power activity. Mahalo to Eliza Akana, Ignacio Arcas, Gentry Hirohata, Pam Kohara, Holly Lee, J. Mitchell, Debby Tisdell, and Karen Umeda for participating.