Hawaii regulators have approved six of eight proposed large solar plus storage projects, with all coming at or under 10 cents per kilowatt-hour.
By CHRISTIAN ROSELUND for PV Magazine
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.
