Hawaii will offer solar feed-in tariff

solar panels SOURCE: coolerplanent.com

The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission has issued a 128-page ruling that initiates a program which will allow homeowners and businesses to install small to midsized renewable energy projects, like solar panels, and sell the energy back to Hawaii’s power producers.

Called a feed-in tariff, or FiT, this rule allows homeowners and businesses to generate solar electricity and sell it back to entities like Hawaiian Electric Co. (HEC) for rates that ā€œexceedā€ current Hawaiian electricity prices. The exact payback figures have yet to be set, but the announcement commits Hawaii to a policy that allows all energy producers to get a fixed price for their production for 20 years under a power purchase agreement.

Hawaii is the fourth region in the nation to offer FiTs — after Gainesville, Florida; Vermont, which offers only a standard rate; and, most recently, California; Wisconsin FiTs are offered only through specific utilities, and only for certain technologies.

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Hawaii is also the nation’s most egregiously fossil-fuel dependent state. The new policy will help the state reduce its dependency on these dirty fuels and move it toward a national goal of energy security.

To read the entire article, go to:
http://solar.coolerplanet.com/News/10290902-hawaii-establishes-solar-energy-tariffs.aspx

(Posted to SCD.COM Newswire 11-2-09)