Hawaii

While the “Smart Export” program may be a better deal for customers with batteries, Hawaii regulators are only committing to interim programs, and have not provided a long-term solution to the issue of DG compensation.

The island, which has been called a ‘postcard from the future’ for its high levels of solar and energy storage, is getting ready for 28 MW more solar and 20 MW of batteries.

Despite the overall energy storage market falling quarter-to-quarter and growing only 6% year-over-year in Q2, behind-the-meter storage is beginning to take off.

Kaua’i has one of the highest penetrations of solar in the world, and this is reflected in electric co-op KIUC’s new proposal.

NRG will build three large projects for utility HECO, which includes the state’s largest solar plant to date.

After years of trying to get utilities fully on board, HECO has issued a five-year plan to double solar and renewables on the road to achieve 100% renewable electricity by 2040.

The must-see panel of Intersolar North America (if you could only see one) discussed the most pressing issue in distributed solar today: What’s happening with net metering – and where does the industry go from here?

Six months after regulators rejected the first plan, HECO has proposed another vision for the state’s electric grid, which is heavier on software than hardware.

The Aloha State has encouraged residential solar customers to move to self-contained electricity systems – but permitting the batteries necessary to enable that are moving far more slowly than expected.

The company’s partnership with Sunetric will allow customers to lease solar+storage systems as a package, which will allow them to participate in the island state’s “self-supply” program.