Overheated market for solar energy leads to industry’s painful consolidation

Remember the 1983 film with Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay, "Risky Business"? Toward the end, after Cruise’s character had to pay back all the money he made the night before to the pimp, Guido sarcastically asks, "Time of your life, huh kid?"

In Hawaii, where photovoltaic sales went off the charts last year, we collectively had the time of our lives and, for a growing number of integrators, are now having to give back those profits as PV sales on Oahu have been down for the past six straight months. According to my crystal ball, the amount of PV sold in 2013 will be down around 20 percent compared to last year.

PV in Hawaii had a monster year last year when more capacity was installed than during the previous 20 years combined. And why not? We’re blessed with abundant sunshine, energy costs are the highest in the nation and tax credits available make going solar electric practically a no-brainer.

So what’s happening? Simply, we’ve become victims of our own success. The electric grids have reached levels of solar saturation to such a degree in a growing number of circuits that the utilities are having to exert greater scrutiny and control over how much more distributed generation can be added. It’s indisputable that any electric utility must be able to exercise control over how much power feeds into the grid. What’s disputable is what that mix should be and just how much variable, non-firm solar power can be accommodated on a circuit-by-circuit and grid-wide basis.

Another factor that has led to the decline is uncertainty over the state tax credit for renewable energy systems. Last fall the state Department of Taxation issued new regulations on the application of the PV tax credit in response to the abuse of the spirit, if not letter, of the Renewable Energy Income Tax Credit. The Legislature tried last session to fix things by creating a new tax credit law, but those efforts fell apart in a conference committee last May.

While many in the local PV industry believed that 2011 and 2012 were just the beginning of more gangbuster years to come, we’ve started on the down side and a painful consolidation is underway. For some, the year-to-year decline has been particularly precipitous. One contractor that was sitting atop the heap in 2010, 2011 and into early 2012 has seen its permit numbers drop by over half this year and the stated value of its projects plummet by over 70 percent.

And with declines like that for others in the industry as well, witness the peddling in an effort to generate sales: offers of $4,000 off, $2,000 cash back, vacation for two to Las Vegas, a new air conditioning system, buy 20 solar panels and get five for free and tens of thousands of airline miles.

But isn’t that the Great American Way? The demand for a product or service is created. That demand increases, creating greater opportunities for entrepreneurs to go after their piece of the PV pie. Solar thermal contractors jumped in. Plumbers jumped in, joined by roofers, joined by mortgage brokers, joined by doctors, lawyers and bankers. Come one, come all!

At present there are about 36,000 grid-tie PV systems across Hawaii, giving home and business owners positive feelings of greater energy independence. A good thing, to be sure. What’s not so good is that over the next handful of years, thousands of PV systems will become orphaned as the companies that installed them go under or will no longer have the desire or resources to provide service and repairs. But that will leave companies like mine and others, that did not seek unsustainable exponential growth, new business opportunities to provide such services to the orphans.

Time of your life, huh, kid?