by NICHOLA GROOM, Reuters, via Chicago Tribune, December 16, 2013

A view of houses with solar panels in the Mililani neighbourhood on the island of Oahu in Mililani, Hawaii
Photo: Hugh Gentry, Reuters
Source: www.chicagotribune.com

(Reuters) – When Gloria Adams signed a contract to install a rooftop solar power system on her Oahu home in late August, she looked forward to lower electric bills and a return on her investment in the years ahead.

She never dreamed that she would have to stop the project, get the Hawaiian Electric Company’s permission before she could proceed, and possibly help pay for any upgrades to her neighborhood’s electricity circuits to handle the extra load.

Her home improvement ran afoul of a rule that went into effect in September.

The regulation requires homeowners on Oahu – Hawaii’s most populous island – to get the utility’s approval before installing photovoltaic (PV) rooftop solar systems.

In areas like Mililani, where Adams lives, the utility’s power circuits have reached a threshold where it would be dangerous to add PV systems without investing in upgrades to the distribution system.

“We didn’t anticipate having to pay HECO when we took this on,” Adams said. “They are acting like they got caught with their pants down, saying, ‘We don’t know how to deal with this.’”

What’s happening in Hawaii is a sign of battles to come in the rest of the United States, solar industry and electric utility executives said. The conflict is the latest variation on what was a controversial issue this year in top solar markets California and Arizona. It was a hot topic at a solar industry conference last week: how to foster the growth of rooftop solar power while easing the concerns of regulated utilities that see its rise as a threat.

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by MATTHEW PHILIPS for Businessweek, Mashable, November 24, 2013

Historical and forecasted cumulative PV installations in Arizona versus the state’s distributed generation carve-outm, 2010-2025 (MW)
Image source: www.mashable.com

Last week, Arizona regulators gave the state’s largest utility, Arizona Public Service, the authority to charge homeowners with solar panels on their roofs a fee for plugging into the grid and in some cases, selling electricity back onto it. Beginning next year, homeowners who install rooftop solar systems will have to pay a monthly levy — the first ever in the U.S. — equal to $0.70 per kilowatt of installed capacity.

That’s well below the $8 per kw that APS had initially sought. Depending on how big their home system is, the fee will end up costing consumers anywhere from $3 to $6 a month, according to a report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. APS had hoped to be able to charge about $50 a month per home. The 18,000 rooftop solar systems already present in APS’s service territory will be grandfathered; only those installed after Dec. 31 will be subject to the levy.

“This is a body blow for the Arizona solar industry, not a knockout punch,” says Stefan Linder, an analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “While this fixed fee will cut into the economics of residential solar, for many homeowners it will still make financial sense to go solar.”

The Solar Energy Industries Association claims that a typical rooftop solar system saves a homeowner about $5 to $10 per month; other estimates put it closer to $20.

The decision by the Arizona Corporation Commission is the first stab at resolving a contentious fight that’s been brewing for years between the solar industry and public utilities. Arizona, the second-largest solar market in the U.S., behind California, has been viewed as a critical battleground in deciding whether utilities would be able to squeeze money out of homeowners who no longer buy electricity from them — and in many cases, actually get paid for pushing supplemental power generated by their solar panels back onto the grid.

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