Hawaii County issued in August three more building permits for solar electric systems than it did in the year-earlier period.

There were 88 permits issued to bring the eight-month total to 726, an increase of 33.2 percent from 545 duing the same time frame in 2017.

The top three photovoltaic permit pullers on the island continue to be Sunrun, ProVision Solar and Renewable Energy Services, respectively.

“One of the most striking things as we sprint to the finish of 2018 is how fast the sales of grid-connected battery-based systems has come to dominate the residential PV market,” said Marco Mangelsdorf, who tracks rooftop solar permits and is president of Hilo-based ProVision Solar. “Of ProVision’s sales so far this year, close to 90 percent include energy storage, in our case Tesla Powerwall. I would not have imagined a year or two ago that battery storage would have come on so strong and so quickly.”