Energy Equity or Energy Divide When Fighting Climate Change

John O Borland J.O.B. Technologies, Aiea, HI, United States

Low-income Native Hawaiian families on Molokai have the State highest energy burden at >19% of income.  The two IEEE Humanitarian projects demonstrate with 4 case studies how to bring Energy Equity and Resilience/Safety to Native Hawaiian communities on Molokai: 1) Native Hawaiian Homesteaders living off-grid because they do not have access to electricity from Hawaiian Electric and 2) Grid-tie Native Hawaiian Section-8 low-income renters without access to rooftop solar.  IEEE Smart Village Phase-1 Pilot program with funds from the Electron Device Society brought Energy Equity & Resilience/Safety to two Native Hawaiian Homesteads by replacing the use of fossil fuel: propane for heating, gasoline for electric generators and ice for ice box/chest with 100% renewable clean energy from the Sun using Solar + Battery and energy efficient household appliances with digitized smart IoT devices.  This reduced the Energy Burden by up to 91%, payback <1.5 years and improved “Quality of Life”.  The IEEE Humanitarian Technology Board and Region 6 additional funds were used to bring Energy Equity to two grid-tie Section-8 low-income renters using a Plug-n-Play Solar-Battery generator with wind turbine option.  Energy Burden was reduced by 65%, payback <2.2 years and “Life Savings” resilience/safety for the home medical Dialysis Machine used 5 days a week.  Money saved from Energy Burden reduction was invested in Homesteads agricultural businesses, renter home aquaponics farm business, new household appliances to improve “Quality of Life” and reduce debt. When scaled for the remaining 75% households on Molokai, will reduce the need to generate cash inflow of ~$2.3M/year from tourism and government subsidies creating a new industry from Passive Renewable Energy.