Richard Ha writes:

Our new hydroelectric system is almost ready to go.

We received a County permit to put a power line under the single lane County road, and that was finished several weeks ago. All the overhead lines are in place now.

All we need to do is hook up the ends and we will be generating electricity from the river.

Our vision is to use the electricity to help area farmers consolidate and ship their produce to market along with ours.

Our hydro project is an attempt to stabilize farmers’ costs. Farmers and food manufacturers here in Hawai‘i – where we use oil for more than 70 percent of our electricity generation, compared to the Mainland where they use oil to generate only 2 percent of their electricity –  are at a disadvantage when it comes to importing food products.

Lots of veteran Big Island farmers are considering selling, instead of passing their farm on to the next generation. The quadrupling of energy costs in the last 10 years had been just too hard for them to adjust to.

Our farm uses approximately 30 kilowatts of electricity, and we will generate more than 70 kilowatts.

We’re asking people for ideas about what to do with the excess electricity. One idea is to cold treat temperate fruit and fool it to think it’s growing in Washington, sort of like what they did at NELHA. I that case, they ran cold water by temperate crops and gave them the cold treatment that way.

Any ideas?