Are there plans for community solar power in Hawaii? (Honolulu: sale, 2013)

[davephan]

Are there any community PV solar systems being setup in Hawaii?

I talked to the people from Able Energy a couple of days ago at a home improvement show. They are going to install a one megawatt community PV solar system. The way that works is if you live in the same county, you can purchase the electricity from their company instead of the local utility. The monthly rate is locked in for 20 years with no increases at close to the same current rate from the utility. After 20 years, the power is free. You can also purchases 'blocks' of power from the system with an up front payment. Able Energy has a 35 year contract with the local utility. The power is delivered to your house through the grid, so you can run your house with PV solar power without having solar panels on your house. It looked like the one megawatt community PV solar system is going to be built within a few miles from our home. The purchased community solar PV power 'blocks' are transferable to the new owners when the house is sold. The same federal and state tax credits are available for the purchased community PV solar 'blocks' as you would get if you had a system installed on your home.

The company also install systems on single family homes and commercial properties. They said that our local utility has to buy the solar power for the same rate as they charge customers. So, in our case, the utility sells the power at 13.5 cent per kwh. The utility buys all your excess solar power for 13.5 cents per kwh. In addition, the utility pays the homeowner an additional 8 cents per kwh for all the power that is generated by their solar power system, even if the solar power generated is consumed by the homeowner. It's like a green energy fee that is paid by the utility to the homeowner because the homeowner is helping the utility meet their 'green' energy mandates setup by the state government. The lawmakers in our state has required the utility to meet a specific time table schedule for percentages of power being generated with green energy.

I got some pricing examples for a 10 KW system. The cost is about $30K. There is about $10K taken off that from the federal credit. I think it was another $8K taken off that for the state credit, reducing the price to about $12K. When the utility raises their rates, then the utility pays the homeowner at that increased rate. You are allowed to build a system at 120% of the size of your current consumed electric power. That vendor told me the payback time for a PV solar system is about 6 years. Another PV solar vendor at the home show told me the payback time is about 10 years. I was also told that the National Association of Realtors has stated that the return on investment of the PV solar system is about 79% on sale of the property, caused by increased value of the property. They heard of up to 120% return on investment due to increased value of the property when the home is sold. The property tax does not increase because of the added value of the home when adding PV solar power.

Previously, I heard that our city did not allow solar panels on rooftops. Only certain community associations within our city prohibit roof top solar panels. So, PV solar power may be possible for us. However, we might only be here for another 5 or 6 years, so that makes it a little harder to justify investing $12K in a PV solar system.

The community PV solar system is an interesting concept and would allow any homeowner to have solar power, even if you lived in an area or situation where solar would not physically work on your home. The community solar power is also available to condo owners, where they otherwise could never have solar power. In Minnesota, there are several other companies that are considering building community PV solar farms besides Able Energy. Community PV solar power sounds like a perfect solution for Hawaii, since there are so many condos and home located where PV solar is not possible. Maybe there are problems that would prevent community PV solar from occurring in Hawaii, such as grid problems. Are there any community PV solar power farms in Hawaii now, or are there plans in the future?

Here's a story about the one megawatt community PV solar system:
http://www.woodburybulletin.com/cont...garden-project

Here's a link to Able Energy, the company that is building the one megawatt PV solar system:
http://www.weknowsolar.com/

[Futuremauian]

I've often wondered if there is a way that pre-existing condominiums could add shared solar. This plan could resolve that issue. If you "buy in" to this plan can your right to purchase power at the original price be passed along to a new homeowner? Or perhaps the cost of power resets to the current price when a house sells? Can you move your buy in to another location? Intriguing concept!

[davephan]

Originally Posted by Futuremauian

I've often wondered if there is a way that pre-existing condominiums could add shared solar. This plan could resolve that issue. If you "buy in" to this plan can your right to purchase power at the original price be passed along to a new homeowner? Or perhaps the cost of power resets to the current price when a house sells? Can you move your buy in to another location? Intriguing concept!

The "buy in" plan where you finance the purchase with $175.00 monthly payments or the purchase price of $30K for 10 blocks of energy before the federal and state credits. After the federal and state credits, its closer to $12K and is equivalent to a 10 KW system. A smaller system using 5 blocks is $87.50 a month or $15K to purchase before the tax credits. The terms are 20 years at 7.95% APR and a 700+ credit score is required.

As far as I know, if you finance the system, and later sell your home, the buyer of the home gets the same fixed price. I can verify that information. If you stop paying or the new homeowner doesn't pay, they have the right to resell the energy blocks to someone else. I asked them about the payback time for their community PV system, when the energy blocks are purchased. I am waiting for that information. If a system is purchased with cash, the system is transferred to the new home owner. I didn't ask about transferring the system to a different home. That's a good question. I can ask about that. There are restrictions for this system, that you have to live in Washington County, but they are specifically targeting this system for Woodbury residents. It makes sense that you should be able to transfer the system to a different home in the same county, since you are pulling the power from the same grid as you did before. The only difference is you are paying Able Energy instead of the local utility company.

About every 1 to 3 years, our utility raises the rates and the rate increase is approved by the state government. The if the utility raises the rates before the approval and the rate is not approved, then they have to refund the rate increase. In the long run, you would save money with a financed community PV system since your rates are fixed. If we got a system, we would simply pay for it with cash to avoid the finance charges. They do have protections if Able Energy goes out of business. That would be another concern if the energy blocks were purchased with cash.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

I'm a big fan of solar, but here is the issue with community solar:

The electricity must be used as it is produced, or else stored and used. Once the storage is full, the production must be used right then. The difficulty is balancing the electricity produced with the electricity used. Families do not use electricity at a steady rate, but the solar panels are generating roughly the same rate all the time, not to demand. The panels also do not increase production if demand is higher than usual.

So, if the system can be grid tied, so that excess electricity has someplace to go, that works. But in Hawaii, the established power companies don't seem to want to accept power from solar generation and they certainly don't want to pay for it. If that barrier can be overcome, then a local little electrical co-op might work well.

In fact, in Hawaii, with the high priced electricity, a small co-op might work very well indeed. Overcoming government inertia, maneuvering through regulations, and establishing a relationship with the local power company would take some serious commitment from the people trying to get it put together.

If you are going to put together a local co-op, OP, I wish you the best of luck and hope you will keep us all posted. I'll be cheering for you.

[davephan]

The power generated by the community one megawatt PV solar system would go right into the grid. The home owner would pull the power from the grid just as they do now. There aren't power lines run directly from the community PV solar system to each home. The homes could be many miles away. Since no solar panels are located at their home, maybe that could be called a virtual PV solar system. Able Energy has a long term contract with the local utility. The energy blocks are purchased from Able Energy, not the local utility. I don't know if there is a connection fee. I will ask about connection fee charges.

I did suggest Hawaii to that company as another possible market for them. It sounds like there would be a lot of issues to be overcome though. The grid may need to be updated to handle the loads. Government rules and regulations may need to be imposed on the utilities. I'm sure the utilities here wouldn't be buying the solar power from homeowners at the same price that they sell power for, 13.5 per kwh, and pay an additional 8 cents per kwh for all solar power generated, even if the power is consumed by the home owners, if they weren't forced to do it by to it by the government. These are problems that may not be easy to overcome or may be impossible if the state government is unwilling to act.

I have no financial interest in the company and I have no intentions of starting a PV solar company. I am just a potential customer.

[davephan]

There's a newspaper article about the proposed one megawatt community PV solar garden in today's St Paul Pioneer press newspaper. In Colorado, 25 new solar gardens were approved, for a total output of 18 megawatts. Our local utility is Xcel. They operate in both Minnesota and Colorado. Xcel has it's own plans to build 150 megawatts of solar power.

Here's a link to the newspaper article about the community PV solar garden systems
Developer wants 5-acre solar panel field in Woodbury - TwinCities.com

Here's an article I found about HECO proposing installing 9 solar garden systems producing up to 240 megawatts of power
Hawaiian Electric Company Takes Strange Approach To Massive New Solar Project

[hotzcatz]

Well, back to the original question, I'd say "no" there's not any plans for community solar power. Mostly since you'd have to use Helco's lines to power them and I doubt Helco would go along with that. Other than a separate power utility on Kauai, HECO/HELCO is about the only game in town.

The link to the article is via Huffington Post, so I'm not exactly sure how valid they are as a source of information. In their article, mostly they are saying Helco is gonna install some big solar systems but aren't telling folks details of them. Which, if I was Helco, is what I'd be doing at the preliminary stages. Until you've got a few details figured out, getting too much community input just makes a mess. Once you know what and where and when, then you can ask for input and have enough data for a valid discussion. But, in any case, it looks like those will be big solar farms installed by HECO and not any outside provider.

I don't know how electric companies are set up on the mainland to share power lines and such, but around here, the lines are all pretty much owned, installed and serviced by HECO, so they have a lot of input in to what happens with the "public" electrical grid.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

Well, back to the original question, I'd say "no" there's not any plans for community solar power. Mostly since you'd have to use Helco's lines to power them and I doubt Helco would go along with that. Other than a separate power utility on Kauai, HECO/HELCO is about the only game in town.

.
I'd say no, but for a different reason. I don't really see a big demand for them. Hawai'i, if anything, is already past all that. We have the highest rate of residential solar energy installations in the country. We have aggressive goals for renewable power generaration, and we're rocking them. On the Big Island about 45% of the electricity sold by HELCO is already being supplied from renewable sources and they buy solar and wind and hydro power from independent producers.

The link to the article is via Huffington Post, so I'm not exactly sure how valid they are as a source of information.

The reporting is via Honolulu Civil Beat, which so far seems to be a fairly solid news agency.

I don't know how electric companies are set up on the mainland to share power lines and such, but around here, the lines are all pretty much owned, installed and serviced by HECO, so they have a lot of input in to what happens with the "public" electrical grid.

They are the legal monopoly known as the public utility, and they own the grid. Nevertheless, their operations must be approved by the Public Utilities Commission. They have no choice but to follow the PUC's directives about buying power from independents, and permitting grid-tie connections, etc.

[keyi]

I am also a fan of solar.

[hotzcatz]

True, they have to follow the PUC's directives, but wouldn't you think that they'd have a bit of pull with the PUC somehow? I'm just doing a sheer guess sort of thing, but frequently that's usually the way these sorts of things seem to work.

I would think, though, there isn't much of a need for community solar since folks who want solar just put it on their roof. We don't have a lot of folks living close enough to each other to make community solar viable, though, do we? Generally Hawaii island's difficulties with whatever infrastructure is being discusses usually has to do with how spread out the client base is.