Big Isle solar permits up 72% in November

Hawaii County in November issued its highest number of solar permits in 13 months as it continued to buck the downward trend on Oahu and Maui, the other two major PV markets in the state.

The number of permits for photovoltaic systems on the Big Island jumped 72.4 percent to 100 from 58 in the year- earlier period as the island continues to lead the way with the state’s highest percentage — 60 percent — of renewable energy feeding into the Hawaii Electric Light Co. grid.

“With the addition of state-of-the-art energy storage and advanced inverters, I am hoping that we are collectively not that far away from individual rooftop solar PV power plants being able to provide valuable grid services to the Hawaiian Electric companies as well as their hundreds of thousands of ratepayers,” said Marco Mangelsdorf, who tracks rooftop solar permits and is president of Hilo-based Pro Vision Solar.

Hawaiian Telcom expands fiber broadband

Hawaiian Telcom has expanded fiber broadband to 5,000 locations in rural areas in Hawaii.

The expansion, partially supported by the federal Connect America Fund, includes the first CAF deployment on Molokai.

About 70 percent of the deployments used Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP) technology, enabling access to ultrafast 1-gigabit (1,000 megabits per second, or Mbps) high-speed internet service, which Hawaiian Telcom was the first in Hawaii to launch in June 2015. Since then Hawaiian Telcom has expanded 1-gig availability by more than 50 percent to more than 140,000 residences and businesses on Oahu, Kauai, Maui and the Big Island.

ALS put on list for medical marijuana use

The state Department of Health has added amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, as a qualifying condition for the use of medical marijuana.

The decision was a result of a petition by Dr. Clif Otto, a medical cannabis advocate. ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, was added to the list of debilitating medical conditions that includes cancer, epilepsy, glaucoma, lupus and multiple sclerosis. Other conditions include HIV, post-traumatic stress disorder, rheumatoid arthritis and severe pain.

Hawaii legalized medical cannabis in 2000, and the state’s first dispensaries opened this year.

ON THE MOVE

Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties has announced the following two new employees:

>> Roberta “Bobbie” A. Arakawa has returned to the firm as an independent agent for its Leeward office. She previously served in residential property management for Associa Hawaii. Arakawa first joined Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties in 2010.

>> Ronald N. Lee has joined the firm as an independent agent for its Honolulu office. He was previously a broker-owner of Real Estate Inc. Lee started his real estate career in 1980 and became a junior partner of a national franchise, ERA Concepts Unlimited.

The Queen’s Medical Center has named Dr. Ronald Kuroda medical director of The Queen’s Transfer Center. He will also continue as medical director of The Queen’s Medical Center-West Oahu. Kuroda has served as an Emergency Medicine physician at The Queen’s Medical Center since 2009.