Kaniela Pang was born in Mililani on the island of Oahu. He graduated from Mililani High School and LCC with an associates in Natural Science. Currently, he is pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering to hopefully in the future become an Energy Engineer and create systems to generate sustainable energy. Just like energy he hopes to be sustainable in his daily life. In his free time he enjoys video games, anime, my little pony, and offbrand.
Home Island: Oahu
High School: Mililani High School
Institution when accepted: University of Hawai’i at Manoa
Project Site: Hawai‘i Electric Light Company: HELCO, Hilo, Big Island HI
Mentor: Kimberly Tabac
Project Title: Outage Mapping on Distribution/Transmission Systems for Reliability & Resilience Mitigation Planning & Prioritization
Project Abstract: Power outages are experienced on all the islands. Different islands and areas may experience outages for different reasons. This project will utilize historical outage data to assist Hawaiian Electric in developing and prioritizing mitigation strategies to address reliability and resilience concerns on transmission and distribution systems. Outage data collected from the last five years and outage cause location information will be entered into a spreadsheet to allow the information to be visualized and analyzed through a GIS map. This requires a manual process involving the investigation of items such as outage cause locations, structure identification numbers, and affected circuits through mainly trouble calls, interruption reports, and GIS applications. The data in this spreadsheet is formatted in a way so that it can be used to populate outage cause locations on a GIS map. This will enable future staff to link outages to Hawaiian Electric systems and aid in outage mitigation planning and prioritization. Currently, outage cause locations were determined for sixteen circuits on Hawaii Island, ten circuits on Oahu, and four circuits on Maui. The completed Hawaii Island circuit outage cause data is currently being mapped. When completed, next steps would involve reviewing the map to determine if outage cause locations align with what was expected. The map would then be used to help identify areas of concern, as well as help develop and eventually prioritize mitigations. This process would be performed for other areas as more outage cause information becomes available.