HECO should hasten rooftop solar approvals

Hawaiian Electric Co. asserts it is in the best interest of the company and all of its customers to halt approval of rooftop solar systems in certain neighborhoods until the state Public Utilities Commission rules on HECO’s request to pay less for the excess energy it buys from those so-called distributed producers.

It’s easy to see how this approach benefits the utility, and even its conventional-energy customers, who are currently subsidizing solar customers, according to HECO. But there’s no way it helps prospective solar-energy customers who are chomping at the bit to join the green revolution and whom the company should be encouraging in the state’s collective quest to meet stringent renewable energy goals.

Whether HECO’s letter to potential solar customers warning them of delays represents a ploy to pressure the PUC to rule quickly, and in HECO’s favor; an attempt to discourage solar customers; a test of the new PUC chief’s authority; or some other reason, is immaterial. The response by the PUC, led by the newly confirmed Randy Iwase, should be the same in any case: a firm rebuke of HECO’s misguided attempt to conflate two distinct issues.

Whether HECO can safely connect more solar-power customers — and clearly it can — is separate from the question of how much it should pay those customers for the excess energy they produce.

The PUC should remind Hawaii’s dominant power company to keep its promises to customers, and, further, should take the time it needs to carefully assess HECO’s rate request, which would affect only future solar-energy customers, not current ones.

HECO, for its part, should proceed apace to fulfill its pledge to hasten approvals for the installation of rooftop solar systems, even in neighborhoods that already generate solar power, and even if that means some new customers receive higher reimbursement rates than rooftop energy producers receive in the future.

In a letter sent to Hawaii island customers in neighborhoods with high solar penetration, HECO subsidiary Hawaii Electric Light. Co. said that "it is in the best interest of all customers and the utility to suspend approving" grid interconnections in highly-saturated neighborhoods until the PUC rules on HECO’s rate proposal, except for those customers who applied for interconnection by Oct. 22, 2014. Similar notices are due to go out to solar-energy applicants on Oahu and in Maui County.

HECO should scrap this stance. Besides conflating the rate and connectivity issues, it seems to renege on the company’s pledge to hasten rooftop solar approvals now that it has more accurate information about the capacity to safely accept incoming power generated by rooftop solar systems.

For years, HECO cited safety and reliability risks as it resisted approving rooftop systems in Oahu neighborhoods where it said solar power had reached 120 percent of grid capacity. However, in January, HECO announced that it was now safe to go to 250 percent of capacity, and promised to expedite solar hookups.

HECO insists it is fair to roughly halve what it pays per kilowatt-hour for power generated back to the grid by solar customers because as it stands now, the vast majority of ratepayers (who don’t have solar power) are subsidizing service for those who do.

Nonsolar customers paid an additional $53 million in operation and maintenance costs to compensate for the solar customer’s low electric bills in 2014, according to HECO.

It is important to craft a rate system that encourages the adoption of renewable energy without crushing conventional ratepayers. HECO’s graceless attempt to force the issue furthers neither of those goals.