On rusty red loam just south of society Anahola Hawaiian island of Kauai’s east side stands solar panels in long lines and dying to the rays of the bright blue sky.
Here 12 megawatts of solar power generated by the cooperative electric company KIUC (Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative) when the plant connected to the grid at some time in April, according to the plan. The energy equivalent to the consumption of 8500 households, roughly a third of the island.
Still missing the substation, as well as the battery bank that will bridge the valleys in production (as in bad weather ).
– When everything is ready, we can cut the cost of importing oil slightly, says Shelley Paik from KIUC that guides around the plant.
But it is not these large “solar farms”, owned by Hawaii’s electric utility, which forms the bulk of the green energy trend that exploded in scope here for the past seven years. But rather thousands of private solar panels on house roofs in Honolulu and other cities. The number has doubled in Hawaii every year since 2008, according to Leslie Cole Brooks in association Hawaii Solar Energy Association, HSEA, in Honolulu. It’s about so-called “net metering”, households that supplies green surplus energy to the grid, thus significantly reducing its own electricity bill.
Leslie Cole Brooks fish up statistics on the trend:
– It is pretty amazing. 2008 there were 220 installations on the main island of Oahu, where 80 percent of residents in Hawaii live. 2014, we had 28,000 installations.
In competition with sun-rich states such as Arizona and California, Hawaii is on track to achieve the highest growth of solar energy per capita in the United States, if the state downright not already one. And Hawaii – one of the world’s most isolated island groups and one of America’s smallest states – also has good prospects for almost all types of renewable energy: these are solar, wind, waves, and the ability to create hydroelectric power in the mountains. The largest island, the “Big Island”, has both biofuels and several active volcanoes whose energy can be extracted. The state’s official goal is 70 percent renewable in 2030.
But Hawaii has also America’s by far the highest electricity prices. The state produces so far the majority of its electricity imported oil. It is an expensive affair that gives residents a price of around 34-42 cents per kWh, miles above the national average of around 12 cents per kWh.
A homeowners on the Big Island sighs when electricity prices is mentioned. He has installed their own solar panels on the roof to cut the bill.
– It gets more expensive every year, they find on the new charges all the time. It is about to derail, he says with a laugh Supplied.
The price of electricity has its causes. Hawaii’s electrical system unlike any one else. If a generator in the continental United States fails to retrieve only more power from the neighboring state of, because the networks are connected together.
So, not in Hawaii: the grid is completely isolated and not paired with something else. All electricity consumed in Hawaii have also produced here.
Given this, some believe that the vast expansion of private solar partly ought to delight even the electricity companies, which therefore do not have to bear the entire risk that production is below demand in networks. Power failures are not entirely uncommon on some islands.
But a few months then problems arose. The state’s largest electric utility Heco (Hawaiian Electric Companies) suddenly stopped approve “net metering” -ansökningar from private individuals.
The company gave several reasons. Heco responsible for the security of the power grid, argued husband, and more solar energy were found to jeopardize it. The company also wanted clarification on whether the price it pays for customers’ solar power could be reduced.
In early March was Hawaii’s energy commission with a resolute answer: we set the price and you can see that grid can handle the new solar energy.
Now we hope Leslie Cole Brooks that the expansion will start again, after this year have stalled almost entirely on the main island of Oahu.
But both she and many other residents while harboring the suspicion that Heco and the state’s few remaining power company tries to thwart private solar power.
– These two cases resolved by the Energy Commission, which is good. But there are more problems that I’m sure will arise in the future.
People say that electricity companies are unnecessarily slow?
– Yes, it is the general feeling that they are looking for reasons to delay the installation. But on the other hand – we have an old grids in Hawaii that are not updated and maintained. And this with private solar panels is a brand new, complex technology.
Shelley Paik on elkooperativet KIUC confirm that electricity companies look with some skepticism at private solar panels.
– The problem is that they do things more complicated. Our generator must compensate much faster than before to changes in electricity networks, otherwise we get a power cut, she said.
But Hawaii’s green energy trend consists not only of private households with solar panels on the roofs . On Kauai – a sparsely populated and scenic island where tourists flying helicopter through dramatic gorges in the island’s inaccessible interior – produced a large portion of the electricity in an oil-fired power plants in the sleepy coastal town of Port Allen. The company is owned by KIUC and looks to be in urgent need of renovation. Rust covers the four chimneys and oil tank a bit away looking at most archaic out.
But then invests also KIUC, established in 1999 and is owned by its customers, the expansion of its own renewable energy to reduce dependence on oil. The solar plant at Anahola on the other hand, the island is just one of several projects.
– At year end, we reach around 40 percent renewable. Right now we are developing plans to daytime pump water into a reservoir on the west side of the island, which we then allow to drain for generating electricity at night when demand is greatest, and we do not get any solar, says Jim Kelly at KIUC’s information department.
At the same time, the company put a stop to “net metering” altogether. The number of such customers is below 200 throughout Kauai and no new permitted now.
– We do not believe that a full-scale “net metering” program is financially sustainable in such a small grid that represents Kauai, says Jim Kelly .
Heco, for its Part no business on the right Kauai, but in several other islands. After the altercation earlier this year between the power company and its “net metering” customers decided dare Leslie Cole Brooks once again be relatively favorable to the expansion of private green energy.
But, she notes too:
– A lot remains before us who work with solar energy can be seen as part of the solution rather than as competitors to the electricity company.
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