A coalition of solar companies said Friday that the industry reached 23 percent of the total amount of solar systems the state allows to receive credit for excess energy sent to the grid in March, less than five months after regulators placed a cap on the incentive program.
The Hawaii Solar Energy Association said the industry reached 8 megawatts of a 35-megawatt cap the state Public Utilities Commission placed in March on a program called customer grid-supply. The program credits customers roughly 15 cents per kilowatt-hour for the excess energy they send to the grid.
Rich Taylor, project developer for Photonworks Engineering, said the islandwide cap could be met in early 2017.
”While customer grid supply is likely to last through the end of the year, the cap will inevitably lead to another sprint to the finish line,” Taylor said. “It is imperative that the state finds a way to support storage technology before customer grid supply is fully subscribed.”
The PUC created the cap in October when it ended net energy metering, a program that credits customers the full retail rate for the excess energy their systems produce. The agency replaced NEM with two less attractive programs called customer grid-supply and customer self-supply. The grid-supply program credit is roughly 10 cents lower per kilowatt-hour than the full retail rate offered with NEM. With self-supply, customers are required to buy a battery to link to their solar systems to prevent them from sending excess energy to the grid.
Colin Yost, principal at RevoluSun, said the grid-supply limit will be met before self-supply gains popularity.
“It’s very likely the cap will be reached before the self-supply program is ready for prime time,” Yost said.
There are 607 approved grid-supply systems and one self-supply system approved for installation in Hawaii. But only four customer grid supply systems have been installed and energized. No self-supply systems have been energized.
HSEA said the number of solar applications approved for installation during March fell more than 60 percent from December due to the change in solar incentive programs. Applications for the new programs were available in November, Hawaiian Electric Co. said.
HSEA said that the industry’s transition to apply for the two new solar programs and the longer applications released by HECO for those programs resulted in the slump.
“The HECO companies’ application forms for customer grid-supply and customer self-supply were more than four times longer than the old NEM application,” HSEA said. “In addition, many applications were rejected for undisclosed and nonsubstantive reasons, such as the mere fact that applicants left blank spaces for information inapplicable to their project. Recognizing these deficiencies, HECO and solar stakeholders, including HSEA, are working together to improve and streamline the applications process.”
Darren Pai, HECO spokesman said the utility developed an application manual and held outreach sessions to help solar vendors better understand the new forms.
“We will continue working with the PUC, the PV industry and our energy community to support the continued growth of rooftop PV,” Pai said.
Despite low numbers of approvals, the number of systems online is up from the year before.
HSEA said that the number of systems energized in March is up 6 percent from December. The coalition said a backlog of NEM applications is responsible for the increase.
“Although the number of energized systems have gone up … nearly all of these are coming from backlogged NEM customers,” HSEA said.
There are 13,169 approved NEM applications that have yet to be be installed, HSEA said.
The number of solar projects that have been completed in their entirety was up 11.1 percent in March compared with March 2015.
HSEA said that although the overall percentage of closed permits is up from last year, almost all of the closed permits consist of backlogged NEM jobs approved prior to October.
