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Civil Beat’s coverage of the recent legislative briefing on the status of rooftop solar in Hawaii highlights some key points of general agreement:

• Safety is paramount and cannot be compromised. Very high amounts of rooftop solar without proper protective equipment on a circuit increases concerns for the safety of our customers and our crews first and foremost, but also for the integrity of customer electronics and utility equipment.

• Hawaii leads the rest of the county when it comes to the amount of solar we are integrating into our grids. According to the national Solar Electric Power Association, no other utilities in the nation, including in California and Arizona, have a higher percentage of customers with rooftop solar.

Although more than 80 percent of circuits on Oahu have room for more solar without the need for detailed safety and reliability studies, we’ve now reached the point on others where the levels of solar require our utilities and the solar companies to be more cautious.

Because Hawaii is so far ahead of the rest of the country, weʻre facing potential safety and reliability issues before anywhere else. That means, in some cases, more detailed study is needed to find technical solutions to safely push out the solar thresholds further.

At Hawaiian Electric, we know our customers are facing prolonged high electric bills driven by sustained high oil prices. We understand how important rooftop solar is for many as a way to help manage their electricity costs and at the same time contribute to Hawaii’s clean energy future.

That is why we’ve made a number of changes to allow more customers to have access to solar, while still protecting safety.

• Based on growing experience and other studies, we changed the threshold so more systems can be installed before a detailed safety and reliability study is needed.

• To reduce the number of studies needed, we’ve initiated several special planning studies to identify the proper equipment to protect safety and reliability on typical circuits. The results of these studies will be applied to multiple circuits. And the study costs will not be charged to the individual solar customers.

• We’ve set up a cost-sharing model to minimize the financial impact of potential equipment upgrades on customers.

Even as we push out the thresholds before a detailed study is needed, some circuits have very high amounts of solar above these thresholds and we need to complete safety studies before interconnecting PV systems in those areas.

We understand the implementation of these procedures has left some Oahu customers who were in the process of installing solar caught in a difficult transition. We’ve heard the concerns and have already approved for interconnection more than 200 customers who had applications in to us when we announced the new procedures.
Working with the solar industry, we will determine what can be done, fairly and safely, in other cases.
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We have encouraged potential future solar customers to use our on-line interactive maps or to call our Net Energy Metering hotline to determine if their circuit is one that will likely require studies and potential upgrades. Our goal in highlighting these issues is to avoid the situation where customers invest in a solar system upfront and then learn after the fact about potential additional costs.

What may have been lost in the discussion so far is that as of today, more than 80 percent of the circuits on Oahu have room for more solar without dealing with studies. Further, some 93 percent of the rooftop solar applications received so far this year were already approved and other approvals are in the pipeline.

Lastly, for the record, there is no financial advantage for Hawaiian Electric to block additional solar from coming onto the system, as is sometimes alleged. Our concerns and responsibility are focused on safety, reliability and fairness to all our customers. We make no profit on studies nor on upgrades paid for by customers who want to add solar.

We want Hawaii to continue to be the national leader in integrating solar and other renewable energy sources, both for the sake of our economy and our environment. With that comes the responsibility to tackle the tough issues before everyone else does.

About the author: Scott Seu is Vice President, Energy Resources and Operations, for Hawaiian Electric Co. He is a graduate of Kamehameha Schools and holds BS and MS degrees in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. In his 20 years with Hawaiian Electric Company, he has managed the utility’s customer installations, environmental, and clean energy acquisition departments.

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