04/06/08 Penalizing Photovoltaic
Honolulu is the southernmost city in the United States and as such receives the most
intense solar energy. We also have the highest electricity rates in the country,
if not in the world.
Sunlight is not very dense energy and requires a large area to produce electricity
from photovoltaic cells. It is relatively clean but does not have a zero footprint
since manufacturing the photovoltaic cells requires energy and materials that require
mining and processing.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration in November 2007 the statewide
average cost of electricity in Hawai'i was 2.7 times higher than the national average.
The state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has recently raised the limit on the
size and amount of photovoltaic and other alternative energy systems that can feed
electricity into the grids, allowing their owners to get credit against their electric
bills.
The PUC doubled the limit on system sizes to 100 kilowatts of peak generating capacity
and doubled the cap on total capacity under net energy metering agreements to one
percent of peak system demand for each customer on O'ahu, Maui and the Big Island
With a dozen states in the continental US already allowing generating capacity of
ten times that much and several having no limits on how many systems can be tied
into a grid, it raises the question of why the local allotment is so small.
Doubling the limit seems generous, but why should there be a limit at all? Public
utility commissions exist primarily to protect consumers against excess profits in
industries where there is no competition,
Placing restrictions on the amount of energy that can be credited back to the grid
instead protects the electric company from competition by penalizing private sources
at a time when there is a drive to encourage alternative energy sources.
This just doesn't make sense.
In establishing the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, the state seeks to have at least
70 percent of its energy needs supplied by renewable sources by 2030.
The restrictions of the PUC places severe limitations on the ability to achieve these
goals. If a private or consumer photovoltaic system produces more energy than can
sell back to the grid then it is giving it to the electric company for free.
Alternative technologies are expensive now, but petroleum prices have climbed above
$100 per barrel and are not likely to come back down to the glory days of the twentieth
century.
Many have envisioned a future where dispersed private and consumer energy generation
contributes significant power to the grid in conjunction with publicly regulated
companies.
Whether or not carbon dioxide is the cause of global warming, higher levels in the
atmosphere and oceans do influence the global ecosystem in ways that are not now
and may not ever be fully understood. The little that we do know about our planet
suggests that any large increase will have deleterious effects in the long run.
With this in mind I can't help but wonder about the wisdom of placing limits on payback
to the grid.
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Richard Brill, Professor of Science at Honolulu Community College (honolulu.hawaii.edu/~rickb),
teaches earth and physical science and investigates life and the universe. His column
is published on the first and third Sunday of every month. E-mail questions and comments
to rickb@hcc.hawaii.edu
" Penalizing Photovoltaic" ©2008 by RCBrill. All rights reserved.