When it comes to solar power, few places offer so much potential as Maui. While there are sunny spots and advantageous conditions all over the Hawaiian Islands, Maui has two main facets that help it to stand out as an excellent venue for solar power—the economics of power generation and tropical weather.
Environmentally, Maui is an exceptional location for a new solar installation. The National Weather Service indicates that the amount of possible daily sunlight on Maui never falls below 60%. The predictability of weather patterns is also a major factor in determining the cost effectiveness of a solar installation. The local microclimates generated in the leeward and windward parts of the island are highly regular, presenting a potential for localized showers which then disperse and give way to sun.
The benefits of Maui’s predictable and regularly sunny climate are obvious to anyone acquainted with the island, but something else truly makes Maui stand out as a prime candidate for a solar power conversion—the high price of conventional utilities.
It’s already common knowledge that electricity prices in Hawaii are higher than anywhere else in the United States. There are a few reasons for this. First, the electrical systems on the islands are independent rather than interdependent. On the mainland, when more electricity is needed, or when something goes wrong with the transmission infrastructure, there is a backup. More electricity can be diverted from a neighboring grid, or an alternative transmission route can be found through additional lines. On the islands, however, there are no neighboring companies to draw emergency power from, and so backup generation and transmission capacity has to be built into the system. This adds additional cost to the utility and therefore the customer.
The means of electrical production in Hawaii are also intrinsically more expensive than on the mainland. On the mainland, inexpensive fuels such as coal, natural gas, or even nuclear are used in electrical generation. On the islands, however, the primary fuel for electrical generation is oil. This is oil which must be imported by sea, and oil which is subject to the wild fluctuations in price due to speculation and global demand.
As I write this, the cost in cents per kilowatt-hour for a residential customer of MECO (Maui County) ranges between 25.55 on Maui and 32.60 on Lanai. (Current rates can be found on heco.com, or in the PDF publication available here.)
And so what does this have to do with making Maui an excellent island for solar? Basically, with prices in excess of those paid by utility customers on neighboring islands, a solar installation will pay for itself on Maui more quickly. No matter what the financing plan for the solar installation is, a higher utility rate will result in a faster payoff—not to mention the fact that a solar installation will mitigate the wild upward swings of global oil prices in the future. The higher oil prices go, the faster the solar installation will pay for itself.
Maui is an island brimming with opportunity when it comes to solar power. The weather, the economics, and the feeling of independence that comes from generating your own power are all benefits that should be taken into consideration when developing a plan for a new solar installation.
