Isles takes the lead in capacity of PV power

Hawaii now has more solar power per person than any other state in the nation.

There were enough photovoltaic systems installed in the islands last year to overtake Arizona in that category, according to a recent report by the Interstate Renewable Energy Council. There were 255.1 watts of capacity for every person in Hawaii at the end of last year compared with 235.9 watts in Arizona.

In 2012, Arizona had a capacity per person of 173 watts, and Hawaii was next at 147 watts.

Overall, Hawaii now ranks sixth for the total amount of PV installed at 153 megawatts. That’s up 28 percent from 120 megawatts in 2012 when Hawaii ranked seventh nationally. Hawaii’s total solar installation represents 3 percent of the U.S. market.

California is first in total solar installation with 2,608 megawatts, or 57 percent of the market.

"We’re continuing our upward trend in both total and divided by population," Hawaiian Electric Co. spokes­man Peter Rosegg said.

In Hawaii, 12 percent of all single-family residential dwellings had PV by the end of 2013, the report said. Hawaii also led the way last year in watts installed in 2013 at 108.9 watts per person, far ahead of New Jersey at 68 watts per person.

"Nationally the average percentage of customers with rooftop solar is 0.5 percent," Rosegg said. "Here in Hawaii we have 12 percent of solar, so the percentage of customers with solar in Hawaii is more than 20 times the national average."

Hawaiian Electric Co. serves about 450,000 residential and commercial customers on Oahu, Maui and Hawaii island while Kauai Island Utility Cooperative, a member-owned cooperative on Kauai, serves 33,000 customers. The number of people benefiting from solar, though, is higher than the number of customers listed by the utilities because customers refer to the number of meters and could include a 20-story condominium or a single-family house.

"Solar energy markets are booming in the United States due to falling photovoltaic prices, strong consumer demand, available financing, renewable portfolio standards and financial incentives from the federal government, states and utilities," the report said.

Thirty-four percent more PV capacity in the U.S. was installed in 2013 than the year before, with 57 percent of that capacity installed in Cali­for­nia, the report said. Residential capacity installed in 2013 increased by 68 percent in the U.S. with more than 145,000 residential PV systems installed during the year.

Utility sector capacity installed grew by 47 percent during the year with 10 PV installations each larger than 100 megawatts.

At the end of December, there were 40,160 systems with a capacity of 301 megawatts connected to the grids of the three Hawaiian Electric Cos. That’s up from 22,550 PV systems with a capacity of 172 megawatts at the end of 2012.

Solar installations in Hawaii have slowed since HECO announced on Sept. 6 changes to its procedures for connecting new solar systems to the grid. Under the new rules, HECO may require homeowners who live in neighborhoods that have high levels of PV installations to undergo a study before approving their PV projects. The study would determine whether any additional equipment is necessary to connect their PV project to that particular part of the electricity grid. If HECO determines it needs to install additional equipment to support more solar systems in a neighborhood, the cost of putting in the new equipment would be paid by the customers who install PV in the future in that neighborhood.

"We know the pace of interconnections have slowed down in 2014, but Hawaii is still a national leader in solar," Rosegg said.

The price of electricity in Hawaii is more than three times the national average in large part because of the high cost of fuel oil used for power generation.

Hawaii residents paid an average of 38.1 cents a kilowatt-hour for electricity in April compared with the national average of 12.3 cents a kilowatt-hour, according to the latest data available from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.