Utility companies and rooftop solar power have had a fraught relationship from the very beginning. Ever since the days of Thomas Edison, utilities have gotten their electricity from large generating stations and distributed it to customers through a system of sub-stations, poles, and wires. The electricity was supposed to flow in one direction only. There’s another wrinkle to consider as well.
Early on, people realized that it was wasteful and inefficient to have multiple utilities in competition with each other, each with its own poles, wires, and substations. And while that is undoubtedly true, it came to represent a certain mindset among folks in the utility business, one which cast them as the masters of their world of electrons with no outside interference allowed.
It’s little wonder, then, that when people started putting rooftop solar systems on their homes and started feeding electricity back into the grid any old time they felt like — and expected to be paid retail rates for it as well! — executives at all those utility companies had a flopping fit. They warned that rooftop solar would destabilize the grid, increase costs for those without solar systems, and threaten the American way of life.
Think that’s an exaggeration? How else to explain the nefarious plot by the utility industry several years ago to pass an amendment to the Florida constitution that would have put a halt to the proliferation of rooftop solar in the Sunshine State. They tried again in the 2022 session of the state legislature, but even the Florida governor couldn’t swallow that plan and vetoed the proposed legislation.
Islands & Solar Power
In the grand scheme of things, islands have the hardest time trying to transition from traditional thermal energy to clean renewable power. They tend to rely heavily on coal, methane, or oil to keep their generators spinning. Hawai’i is no different. In fact, much of its electricity comes from burning diesel fuel refined from oil. In fact, a third of its oil imports came from Russia until Pooty Poot decided to go full rogue in Ukraine.
That fact, more than any other, has forced Hawai’ian Electric Company (HECO) to rethink its long standing opposition to rooftop solar. A decade ago, its CEO, Shelee Kimura, pressured state lawmakers to reduce incentives for rooftop solar, a tactic that the utility industry has used across the country. According to the New York Times, she argued that rooftop solar is not as efficient as large scale solar and wind farms.
That is technically correct. A kilowatt of electricity from 20 solar panels on a roof costs far more than a kilowatt of electricity from a solar power farm with 10,000 panels. The other side of the coin, however, is that the electricity from a rooftop installation can be used right where it is created and doesn’t have to be sent over tens or hundreds of miles of …….
Source: https://cleantechnica.com/2022/06/02/at-long-last-hawaii-embraces-rooftop-solar-power/