PV solar struggles to stay afloat

What comes next for solar PV?

To say that the solar industry in Hawaii is experiencing some challenges is like saying that someone with a serious, if not life-threatening, illness is dealing with some health problems.

After enjoying the peaks of the solarcoaster 2012-2014, depending on the island, we’re now in a place where the tracks are leveling out to a point where we in the industry are crawling along at an anxiety-producing rate.

The numbers for the first half of this year compared to the same period last year are downright scary, especially in light of 2016 sales being the worst since my staff and I began crunching the data starting in 2010:

Oahu

Last month the Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting issued 231 PV permits compared to 368 in 2016, a drop of 37 percent. From January to June, 1,171 PV permits were issued compared to 2,610 in 2016, a drop of 55 percent. Compared to the first six months of the all-time high year of 2012, PV permit numbers are down 78 percent.

Hawaii County

Last month the Hawaii County Building Department issued 78 permits for photovoltaic systems compared to 135 PV permits issued in June 2016, a drop of 42 percent.

Over the first six months of the year, the county issued 354 PV permits compared to 703 during that same period in 2016, a drop of 50 percent.

Maui County

Of the three service territories served by the Hawaiian Electric companies, Maui County took the biggest hit in the drop in PV permits so far this year. Last year the county issued 1,007 PV permits over the first six months compared to 363 issued this year, a 64 percent drop-off.

There’s a lot bubbling in the hearty energy stew in our state these days. Base rate increases for HECO and HELCO are before the state Public Utilities Commission. The PUC recently approved Hawaiian Electric’s proposed power supply improvement plan, albeit with notable caveats, bringing to a close a three-year odyssey of multiple iterations and rejections. Battery storage has become the newest Holy Grail in our quest to achieve 100 percent renewable energy power generation. And the commission and multiple energy stakeholders grapple with what comes next on the critically important distributed energy resources docket.

The parties to this docket have been working diligently on the next steps for new interconnect models for renewable energy systems connecting to the grid. The commission has asked the parties to come up with consensus stipulations by next month.

In those discussions, there’s no shortage of really smart people who are looking at how smart grids, smart inverters, smart meters, smart export and smart monitoring can all work oh-so-smartly together.

There doesn’t seem to be any doubt among Hawaii energy stakeholders that more rooftop solar PV deployed is a good thing. But then smart people all agreeing on doing smart things with smart hardware and smart software doesn’t necessarily lead to timely action.

As a PV business owner who’s been here in these trenches since the 1980s, I have to wonder whether we’re now entering into some new normal as sales drop precipitously and a growing number of major players disappear or see their revenues drop off the diving cliff.

During the boom times in this industry, there was no shortage of individuals getting into the field from other professions.

I considered those people opportunists rather than true believers.

Now virtually all those opportunists are gone, leaving us true believers back where we started as we work to keep our industry alive and maintain profit-sustaining sales revenues.

Marco Mangelsdorf is president of ProVision Solar, a Hilo-based solar company.