Suntech Hawaii's solar installation atop a Kane'ohe auto spa building has delighted its owner, Honda Windward, with its electricity savings.

Michael Stoebner couldn’t be happier a year after blanketing the roof of one of his Kane’ohe auto spa buildings with solar photovoltaic panels.
“So far it’s been great,“ said Stoebner, general manager of Honda Windward, owner of the car wash and maintenance facility on Kahuhipa Street, Honoluluadvertiser.com reported.
The photovoltaic panel system provides 40 percent of the power it takes to run some 200 vehicles through the facility’s car wash each day, with the company looking at selling some of the power it produces to Hawaiian Electric Co (HECO).
Across the state similar stories are unfolding as photovoltaic electrical systems sprout on rooftops of businesses trying to escape Hawai’i’s nation-leading commercial and residential electricity rates and take advantage of federal tax credits before they expire at the end of the year.
Businesses are also wary of future electricity price hikes as petroleum prices climb and $100-a-barrel oil is no longer fanciful talk. The state is 77 percent dependent on petroleum for its electricity production.
Local photovoltaic system installers report being busier than ever. Business was so hectic last week for SunEdison LLC, North America’s largest solar services provider, that its executives had trouble finding time for an interview. Last year the Beltsville, Md.,-based company bought Kailua-based Island Energy in seeking a piece of the burgeoning business here.
The list of companies getting systems is growing and includes the likes of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the Bentonville, Ark., discounter that in part built its cost-efficiency advantage by sophisticated use of technology at its warehouses and suppliers. Wal-Mart, with the help of SunEdison, has installed or is installing four systems on Hawai’i stores this year.
Castle & Cooke Inc. wants to install a 1.5-megawatt photovoltaic system on Lana’i that will provide 30 percent of the island’s daytime power needs, while Actus Lend Lease Corp., the biggest builder of military housing here, has contracted another Kailua company, Suntech Hawaii, to put photovoltaic systems on 3,500 homes. Suntech says the homes will generate 65 percent of their own electricity.
The list continues. The state plans to put panels atop 12 buildings to generate up to 34 megawatts of electricity. Costco Wholesale Corp. has installed 680-kilowatt systems at its Kona and Lihu’e stores; an 804-kilowatt system is planned for Kona Commons shopping center.
Hilo’s ProVision Technologies Inc. has put in systems atop car dealership buildings on Maui and the Big Island--at a Kahului linen supplier and at a Pahoa grocer. Even Hawaiian Electric Co. is putting in a 167-kilowatt system at its Ward Avenue facilities to gain more familiarity with the technology.
Hawai’i has two critical components to drive installation of commercial photovoltaic systems, a technology that’s been around since the 1950s and is commonplace today in calculators and watches.
One of the factors is obvious--lots of sun for the photovoltaic cells to convert light to electricity. The second is savings that can be achieved by reducing power from an electric utility’s grid. Travis Bradford, author of “Solar Revolution: The Economic Transformation of the Global Energy Industry“ and editor of the PVNews newsletter, says Hawai’i is a leader in both categories.
“If you lined up all the states in the US, Hawai’i is at the top,“ said Bradford. “Hawai’i is a fantastic market for solar energy.“
While there are many good environmental reasons for business to adopt photovoltaic systems, including the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, there are powerful economic incentives in place for business to jump on the bandwagon. Suntech Hawaii installed Stoebner’s system and estimates the system is saving the dealership $2,000 a month on electricity.
Business owners who buy the systems outright can get 72 percent of the system paid off in tax savings the first year, according to Sean Mullen, president of Suntech Hawaii. That includes a 30 percent federal tax credit, a 35 percent state credit and the remainder in accelerated depreciation. Honolulu City Councilmember Charles Djou announced a new law recently exempting photovoltaic systems from the payment of permit fees.
“We’re in a very, very busy time for the industry right now,“ Mullen said. “It’s good for all of us.“
There also are a variety of financing options available for businesses including from outright purchases, purchase power agreements (PPAs) and leases.
Under the PPAs the business signs an agreement to buy power from the company installing the equipment. Where Hawaiian Electric might charge 19.5 cents per kilowatt hour, the PPA might sell the electricity to the business for 16 cents or 17 cents per kilowatt hour, Mullen said. Such agreements may run 20 years and include an adjustment clause for inflation.
“You’re kind of hedging against the oil price in the future,“ Mullen said. “The PPA prices we’re giving out right now start out cheaper than what most customers are paying HECO.“
He said the lease option is favored by people who can’t purchase and don’t want to commit to a 20-year PPA. Instead, they’ll agree to pay a set lease amount, say $1,000 a month, for 10 years. Mullen said the lease rates typically are 20 percent less than what customers would pay for the electricity on the Neighbor Islands, where prices are higher than on O’ahu.

Natural gas is a cleaner fuel when compared to coal, but in the context of climate change, it’s far from being our savior. Once all of Ontario’s coal plants are shut down--we’re told by 2014--then the next greenhouse gas emitter on the global warming hit list is, by default, natural gas.
“About 36 percent of Toronto’s carbon dioxide emissions come from natural gas,“ says Philip Jessup, executive director of the Toronto Atmospheric Fund.
According to Thestar.com, it calls attention to our strategy of doubling natural gas plant capacity as part of the province’s 20-year power system plan. It also puts the spotlight on “fuel-switching“--that is, ditching your electric stove in favor of natural gas, or getting rid of that electric resistance heating in favor of a natural gas-fired furnace.
Compared to electric heating, there’s no disputing that natural gas is currently cheaper. But is it cleaner than electricity?
Not in Ontario. Not in Toronto. In fact, once all coal plants are shut down, a lion’s share of the electricity in the province will come from nuclear, hydroelectric and wind power. That means using electricity to heat your home will result in far less greenhouse gas emissions than using a natural gas appliance.
So the question is, how do we make using electricity cheaper?
Duane Hallowell, 34, a former cryogenic engineer with the US navy, is focused on this mission. He founded a company in Maine three years ago, called Hallowell International, aimed at getting households in northern US and Canadian climates off of fossil fuels.
What he invented was a new kind of heat pump, which as a technology has existed for decades. The difference is that Hallowell’s heat pump, called Acadia, was designed to work efficiently in temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius--that is, in Canadian winters.
“For the same amount of energy to heat a house with resistance heating, you could heat three homes with an Acadia,“ he says.
“And that’s a worst-case scenario.“
There are typically two kinds of electrical heat pump systems Ð air-source and ground-source.
The latter is what we commonly know as low-temperature geothermal, which cools a building by extracting heat from inside and dumping it in the ground; or in reverse, heats a building by pulling heat out of the ground and releasing it inside.
Geothermal systems can run $25,000 to $35,000 for a residential retrofit, which is a tough bite to swallow even though the payback is much quicker than, say, solar power or small-wind systems. A big part of that cost is the need to drill holes in the ground and line it with tubing. Glycol or food-grade ethanol in the tubing acts as the energy carrier, exchanging heat between the ground and the building.
A ground-source system is more efficient than an air-source one. The temperature in the ground is more constant than the ambient air, so ground-source heat pumps don’t have to work as hard.
But hurdles to their deployment remain. If the drilling or tube laying isn’t done properly, or if the system isn’t sized accurately for a home’s cooling and heating needs, fixing it can be a nightmare.
These risks are falling, which is encouraging, and generous government incentives Ð $7,000 from Ottawa and the province combined Ð do help ease financial pain. But nagging “what if“ worries of ground-source systems remain.
In urban areas, geothermal also poses problems. When you live in the Annex or Beaches and have little backyard space to spare, then the logistics of drilling holes and laying tubing become tricky. Tricky equals higher cost.
Air-source heat pumps work in much the same way as geothermal systems, but instead of the ground, they use outside air to extract and release heat. Home refrigerators work in a similar way. They extract heat from the food in your fridge and release it from coils behind it.
Air conditioners are a one-way heat pump Ð in summer it extracts heat from inside air and dumps it outside. Air-source heat pumps are popular in the U.S. south because they work like air conditioners, plus they can provide limited heating if temperatures drop.
“Unfortunately, they’re still just being developed primarily as air conditioners with a major deficiency in heating,“ says Hallowell.
It’s why they’ve never taken off in Canada. Once temperatures drop below freezing, a conventional air-source heat pump is useless.
Hallowell saw the neglect, so he went ahead and engineered a better air-source heat pump--one that operates during the summer like an Energy Star central air conditioner but in the winter handles all of a home’s heating needs. “Are we as efficient as geothermal?“ asks Hallowell. “Well, we’re close.“
Natural Resources Canada is now testing the Acadia system. I consulted an energy consultant who is also testing it for the Manitoba energy ministry. He didn’t want to be named, but had good things to say.
“They’re the real deal. Technically, there’s no massive, innovative, wizardry here. Just compressors and booster coils and good control systems. Very well done.“
His only concern was that Hallowell is still new to the market so it doesn’t yet have a track record for service and maintenance. “So if you’re getting one of these early units, see if they’d provide guarantees of servicing and back-up.“
Hallowell’s Canadian distributor, MITS Air Conditioning Inc. of Mississauga, says it costs $14,000 to $16,000 to purchase and install an Acadia system, compared to about $11,000 for a high-end air conditioner and gas furnace.
Unlike geothermal, there’s no ripping up of grass. No drilling.
Currently, the federal government offers a $400 incentive to purchase an air-source heat pump. The province matches that. Hallowell is trying to get that incentive increased so it’s at least half of what geothermal systems get.
Tyler Hamilton

There are 2.4 gigawatts of wind power capacity in the UK at present.

The UK’s plans to ease the building of new wind farms will do little to encourage new turbines to be built to meet the government’s exacting renewable energy targets, according to the renewable energy industry.
The bill currently before parliament is intended to streamline the process of granting planning permission to large wind farm sites by referring them to the UK’s new Independent Planning Commission, Ft.com reported
But the British Wind Energy Association told the Financial Times that the measure was “too late, too weak“ and aimed at the wrong target.
“The irony is it will not help,“ said Gordon Edge, director of economics and markets at the BWEA.
“The measures will not be implemented until 2009, it will take a while to get the Commission up and running, and it only applies to large wind farms over 50 megawatts.“
Mr Edge said the combination of these factors would leave a large backlog of proposed wind farms still stuck in the planning system. The BWEA calculates that there are 2.4 gigawatts of wind power capacity in the UK at present, enough to power 1.3m homes. But there is more than 9GW of new capacity stuck in the planning process.
A Financial Times analysis of the wind market has found that large subsidies from the electricity consumer to wind farms were failing to encourage new construction because of planning system delays. Last year, according to the BWEA, just 427MW of generating capacity was built, down from 631MW in 2006.
Most new applications are likely to be for smaller windfarms, Mr Edge says, because so many of the best sites for large farms are already taken up by projects in planning. Proposals for small wind farms are handled by local authorities, however, meaning the government’s proposed new planning commission is unlikely to speed up the planning process.
The UK must expand the proportion of its electricity supply coming from renewables eight-fold by 2020, under proposals by the European Commission, so that it derives 40 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources such as wind.
Wind has seen a surge of investment as one of the most mature and cheapest renewable technologies, but many investors have been frustrated by the planning system.