Amid much hoopla and ceremony, in June of 2006, as a smiling Governor Linda Lingle looked on, Ron Baird of the state’s Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai`i Authority and Hans Krock, president of OCEES, signed a letter of intent, committing both NELHA and OCEES to “reach an agreement” to develop an ocean-thermal energy conversion plant at NELHA’s Keahole facility.

Stephen Oney, vice president of OCEES, told OTEC News that the plant would be the “first commercial plant in operation in the world and is anticipated to be completed and operational in 2008.”

Over the next six weeks, email traffic between Baird and various OCEES officers was flurrious. A draft business plan was developed, which anticipated the establishment of an entirely new corporation, Kona OTEC, to run the proposed plant. Kona OTEC (KOTEC for short) would be a joint venture of NELHA and OCEES, with OCEES providing the technological expertise and arranging the capital, and NELHA providing the land. In addition, NELHA was to receive “an initial 25 percent interest in the plant and intellectual property to be developed,” according to Baird. NELHA would also get electricity from the plant, at a price that was yet to be determined.

It all came to a screeching halt in mid-August.