On May 16, a coalition of photovoltaic system installers and solar energy advocates filed a motion with the state Public Utilities Commission, formally asking it to lift the 35 megawatt cap it put in place last fall when it ended the net-metering program.<\/p>\n
The \u201caccelerating pace of [customer grid supply] tariff applications may fill any remaining capacity on some islands by as early as the first week of June 2016 and will likely fill any remaining capacity on all islands by the beginning of August 2016,\u201d the coalition stated in its motion. In addition, adjustment of the cap would \u201chelp maintain the industry\u2019s interim viability.\u201d According to the Hawai`i Solar Energy Association, 73 percent of solar installers surveyed \u201creport workforce reductions of 35 percent on average\u201d since the cap was imposed, with further reductions likely when the remaining net-energy metering projects have been installed.<\/p>\n
Under the PUC\u2019s order, the 35 MW of new rooftop solar capacity added under the grid-supply option is distributed among the service areas of Hawaiian Electric. O`ahu is allowed 25 MW, Maui County is allowed 5, and Hawai`i island is allowed 5. As of late April, the company reported that on O`ahu, 9.5 MW of grid-supply solar had been installed or in the pipeline; 1.3 MW on Maui; and 2.4 MW on Hawai`i island. That means 38 percent of the total allowed capacity for new rooftop solar systems is already spoken for.<\/p>\n
In each week in April, the average amount of capacity added to the grid each week came to 1.16 MW (with 0.77 MW on O`ahu; 0.27 on Maui; and 0.12 on the Big Island). If this number holds steady, the cap on new Maui systems could be reached in the first week of July, that on O`ahu by the end of August, and that for Hawai`i island by early November.<\/p>\n
But, the coalition argues, that pace will likely accelerate \u201cas customer familiarity with the [customer grid-supply] tariff continues to grow and pressure to install projects builds with in response to the impending cap.\u201d A \u201cmore realistic\u201d scenario, the motion states, has the O`ahu cap being reached in early July; that for Hawai`i island by August 12; and that for Maui topping out by June 10.<\/p>\n
The PUC also needs to increase the cap, the solar parties state, so that the grid-supply option \u201ccan continue to serve its purpose as a bridge between [net metering] and more permanent [distributed energy resource] market structures.\u201d The customer self-supply option has been slow, they add, with just one system having come online to date.<\/p>\n
Finally, the solar parties take note of the fact that Hawaiian Electric has cancelled three utility-scale projects that would have added 112 megawatts of solar power to O`ahu\u2019s grid. \u201cGiven that the HECO companies have no \u2018shovel redy\u2019 replacements for these projects and may not be able to replace the capacity of these projects for at least 20-30 months,\u201d the motion states, \u201cthere should be little or no detriment in allowing a fraction of that 112 MW shortfall to be filled by\u201d the grid-supply customers.<\/p>\n
— Patricia Tummons<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Volume 26, Number 12 June 2016<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On May 16, a coalition of photovoltaic system installers and solar energy advocates filed a motion with the state Public Utilities Commission, formally asking it to lift the 35 megawatt cap it put in place last fall when it ended … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[402],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-9008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-june-2016","tag-patricia-tummons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}