Hurricane Lala knocked out electricity to hundreds of thousands of people in Hawaii. Although power was restored relatively quickly in some areas, the most severely damaged communities could remain without electricity for weeks or even months. It could have been much worse.
Lala’s eye passed about 40 miles from Hawaii island, devastating Ka‘u. Fortunately, most of the rest of the state was spared serious damage. The storm passed about 75 miles from Oahu, for example. Nevertheless, Lala exposed a fundamental vulnerability of Hawaii’s centralized electrical system.
The major cause of the outages was damage to transmission infrastructure, including downed lines. That is consistent with research by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), which studied 18 hurricanes and found that hurricane-related outages are caused largely by damage to transmission systems.
The difference between centralized and distributed electricity is important. A centralized system may have a chain extending for miles:
Power plant, to transmission lines, to substations, to distribution lines, to home.
Damage to a relatively small number of transmission or distribution components can disconnect enormous numbers of customers. Some transmission lines also run through mountainous terrain, making repairs particularly difficult.
A distributed system works differently. A rooftop solar system for a single-family home, for example, has a much shorter chain:
Solar panels, to battery/inverter, to home.
Damage to one rooftop system affects only that home, rather than disconnecting thousands of others.
When properly designed, solar-plus-storage systems can continue supplying electricity when the centralized grid fails. NREL concludes that resilient on-site solar and storage can minimize widespread outage impacts when systems are securely installed, designed to withstand high winds, equipped with batteries and capable of “islanding.”
Islanding prevents a rooftop system from sending electricity onto the larger grid when that grid goes down, protecting utility workers from electrocution. At the same time, it allows the system to continue supplying electricity to the home. Increasingly, rooftop systems are being paired with batteries, making this capability practical.
Based on available information, there is no indication that Lala broadly destroyed or rendered Hawaii’s rooftop solar systems useless. Some individual systems undoubtedly may have been damaged, but the storm appears to have demonstrated the vulnerability of the centralized grid rather than the fundamental vulnerability of rooftop solar.
About half of Hawaii’s single-family homes now have rooftop solar. New systems are increasingly paired with batteries, allowing households to use solar energy after sunset and providing backup power when the grid fails.
Hawaii should build on this distributed energy resource. Unfortunately, the state is moving in the opposite direction. In 2026, the state Legislature passed a bill limiting funding for a tax-credit program for rooftop solar, thereby limiting the number of systems that can qualify. The governor commendably issued an executive order allowing the limit to be exceeded in 2026. But that is only a temporary reprieve. The limit takes full effect in 2027, and the bill eliminates the tax credit entirely in 2030.
Ten years ago, Hawaii adopted a goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. Now the state is backsliding from that goal. Rooftop solar should be encouraged, not discouraged. Substantial tax credits should again be available to everyone who installs it.
Lala was a warning. Hawaii cannot eliminate hurricanes, but it can reduce their consequences. A stronger electrical system isn’t simply one with stronger centralized infrastructure. It is one in which hundreds of thousands of small generators and batteries can keep people powered when the grid goes down.
Paul Bernstein is with the Citizens’ Climate Lobby and Carbon Cashback Hawai‘i.
