Hawaii's new reality of solar plus storage: under 10 cents

[jpak]

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2019/03/28/hawaiis-new-reality-of-solar-plus-storage-under-10-cents/

In only a few years, solar paired with energy storage has gone from a niche concept to the new reality of the U.S. power system. And it all really came down to price.

While the 14.5 cents per kilowatt-hour that SolarCity was able to achieve with solar plus storage on Kaua’i was groundbreaking three and half years ago when it was announced, today Hawaiian regulators set a new threshold for the price that solar projects fully backed by four-hour batteries must beat: 10 cents per kilowatt-hour.

The Hawaiian Public Utilities Commission (HPUC) has approved contracts between the subsidiary utilities of Hawaiian Electric Industries and the developers of six projects, representing a combined capacity of 247 MW of solar, and 998 megawatt-hours of energy storage – meaning that the entire capacity of all six projects will be fully backed by four-hour batteries.

The price for each of these contracts was between eight and ten cents per kilowatt-hour. This is cheaper than both gas peaker plants and HEI’s current cost of fossil fuel generation, much of which is petroleum-based, which the company put at around 15 cents per kilowatt-hour.

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[msongs]

1. Hawaii's monopoly electricity provider is fighting solar with every ounce of its being nt

[mahina]

3. Yes and no.

They did. They sure don’t seem to be helping us with decentralized generation very much.

They talk up $.10 but is that to the end user or the cost to HECO and they continue to charge us $.28?

(I realize Kaua’i is independent)

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. More here ...

https://democraticunderground.com/1127125519