The state Public Utilities Commission announced the end of a popular solar energy incentive program on the Big Island last week.
The state Public Utilities Commission announced the end of a popular solar energy incentive program on the Big Island last week.
Customer grid-supply, one of two solar incentive programs implemented by the PUC in 2015, reached its energy cap on Hawaii Island last Thursday.
Grid-supply allows solar owners to export excess solar energy into the island’s power grid. In exchange, Big Island grid-supply customers receive approximately 15 cents per kilowatt-hour sent to the grid, although residents of less populous islands receive greater credits.
The Big Island’s grid has a 5-megawatt limit for grid-supply connections, which it reached last week. However, solar providers are still accepting grid-supply applications until Oct. 21 as they work to increase the grid’s limit.
Jay Ignacio, president of Hawaii Electric Light Co., said solar companies added an additional 4.74 megawatts to the grid’s cap by reclaiming grid space used by former customers of net energy metering, a previous solar incentive program that credited users the full retail rate for energy exported to the grid. By freeing the space of customers who dropped out of the net energy metering or grid-supply programs, additional customers can still apply for grid-supply.
“We’ll do our best to get as many applicants in before the 21st, but there’s no guarantee,” said Jim Alberts, senior vice president of customer service at HELCO. Any additional applicants until then will be placed into a queue to be potentially approved if space can be freed.
Ignacio said the Big Island is the first island to have reached its grid-supply limit, although Maui and Oahu are nearing their limits.
“There’s 10 megawatts left on Oahu,” Ignacio said. “That may sound like a lot, but there are also more customers on Oahu, so it won’t last much longer.”
Marco Mangelsdorf, president of Hilo solar provider ProVision Solar, said neither net energy metering nor grid-supply are likely to return.
“Net energy metering was fantastically beneficial, but it was only an incentive program at a time when an incentive program was needed,” Mangelsdorf said.
He said the next phase of solar adoption in Hawaii likely will be a program called “smart export,” wherein customers can use batteries to store energy and export it to the grid during peak demand hours in the evening.
Alberts said the smart export proposal is still undergoing review before solar providers present it to the PUC.
Until a new program is confirmed, the only remaining solar incentive program on the Big Island is a customer self-supply program, which allows customers to store excess energy in batteries for use at their discretion.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.