Kahauiki Village provides long term, affordable residences for homeless families. Modeled after Hawaii’s plantation era culture, Kahauiki Village’s vision is to break the cycle of homelessness by embracing:
A Public-private partnership to finance, construct, and support the families with on-site social agency and child-care facilities, and commitments from neighboring businesses to hire village residents.
A 144-family master planned community built on an underutilized 11.3 acre parcel with the following features:
Re-use of homes were originally built for the Tohoku, Japan tsunami victims
Community support buildings
Garden areas, fish farms, and recreational areas
Low-cost, maintainable, and sustainable construction solutions.
InSynergy Engineering, Inc. in collaboration with PhotonWorks, engineered an integrated off-grid renewable energy micro-grid that includes:
the first application of a solar-powered microgrid to an entire residential community in Hawaii,
first of its kind shared photovoltaic (PV) system with battery energy storage,
gas for cooking, backup water heating and power generation,
a grid electricity tie for the battery trickle charging.
The integrated microgrid system design includes full mechanical, plumbing and electrical systems, as well as 1956 kw of PV, a 1.965 MWH BESS, and a 300 kw standby LPG generator. Completed in 2018, this innovative projects includes the implementation of a reliable and failsafe microgrid control system that accommodates all potential modes of operation due to a lack of proven off-the-shelf solutions. In addition, it utilizes larger, lower cost inverters that serve multiple housing units and distributed sewer lift stations, and uses three-phased balanced power distribution within housing units.
This project was awarded a 2019 ACECH Engineering Excellence Design Award.