Joyce Villegas, Homeowner I have been waiting 3 years. 3 years to have solar panels installed. My neighbor across has some panels. The ones that have solar panels, they pay 18 dollars a month. I paid almost 395, Almost 400 dollars. They said the grid is full. So, I’m still waiting. TITLE: GETTING ON THE GRID VO Hawaiians have some of the highest electric bills in the country. And they have rushed to install photovoltaic, or PV, systems onto their rooftops, so they can make their own power. James Whitcomb, Founder/CEO, Haleakala Solar It’s not just about saving the planet here. It’s about saving the rate payer from being held hostage by the utility company. The American people want solar energy. I don’t care whether you’re in Oklahoma, New York, California, or Hawaii. Whatever happens in Hawaii is going to happen in the mainland. It’s just a matter of when. VO Nationwide, Hawaii is on the forefront of solar adoption. And other states are watching to see how HECO, Hawaii’s main utility, reimagines it’s business. Colton Ching, VP of Energy Delivery, HECO We don’t have the luxury to look at another state and say, how was it done there? And instead, we sort of had to figure it out on our own. So the traditional utility circuit like we have in Hawaii, power starts off at a substation, and flows power one way from that sub-station to each home that we serve. Rooftop solar adds a generator on people’s rooftops Darren Pai, spokesperson, HECO Our crews are working on upgrading our substation. And the challenge is the grid was designed to handle the power flowing in one direction. But now it’s going back and forth between our customer’s rooftop’s PV system back into the rest of the grid. We had to do a lot of work to catch up and keep up with the demand for photovoltaic systems. Here in Hawaii, the combined output of all of our rooftop solar systems, up the circuit, back into our substation, feeding into the grid, can really, potentially, bring the entire island system down. VO Infrastructure upgrades to avoid that worst case scenario are expensive, and heco has moved slowly. Some critics say too slowly. Mike Feeney, retired schoolteacher What should have been a 90 days project turned into 5 full months to get completely installed, setup and running. And now, I make more electricity than I use. Usually, June and July is free. So that was great. James Whitcomb, Founder/CEO, Haleakala Solar But of course, if you play that business model out to the end, whereby you get full credit for every bit of electricity you produce, then the utility company doesn’t make any money and they go out of business. And of course, if we don’t have the grid then we can’t have the solar energy. Colton Ching, VP of Energy Delivery, HECO It’s a unique challenge. PV customers are not paying for providing power at night, basic electric service, backup power. All of that, PV customers are not paying for fully, and instead are being paid for by customers of ours who don’t have PV systems. And right now it’s to the tune of over 50 million dollars. VO Hawaiian Electric wants to cut the rates it pays customers for their solar energy in half. They say that would ensure that solar customers pay their fair share of overall service costs. James Whitcomb, Founder/CEO, Haleakala Solar And so the current proposal is essentially a wholesale-retail business model they’re going to go into. Whereby, they’re going to pay you a wholesale rate, and when you buy electricity from them they’re going to pay a retail rate. Now I’m a total advocate for this because what it does do is it allows the business model to play to the end. And so by distributing this generation around, and having the utility companies basically be the toll keepers, ultimately, over the long term, I mean you’re looking at a future here where the utility company can transcend from the old business model to the new business model. Because if they don’t, just like digital photography and things like that, you never can tell what a disruptive technology’s going to do. Colton Ching, VP of Energy Delivery, HECO So it’s an extremely interesting time. It creates a lot of burden for us, a lot of pressure. We have some customers who have been waiting for quite some time. We’ve committed to clearing 90% of them by April of this year. Joyce Villegas, Homeowner I’m waiting. I’ve waited for so long, but they it’s April—and so I’m so excited. In the long run. I’ll save lots of money, am I correct?