Comments on: With Hawaii, Cheap Solar PPAs Are Now in Nine US States

By: Washington Utility Proves Home Solar and Wind Too Pricey? | Ace Campaign

Washington Utility Proves Home Solar and Wind Too Pricey? | Ace Campaign — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 09:43:31 +0000

[…] insolation a day than California. The same 30% Federal tax credit is available. Perhaps it is that California is one of nine or ten states where renewable energy companies like SunRun and SolarCity a…for your business.With such an exorbitant cost in Washington for such a miniscule fraction of the […]

By: Hawaii Riding High On Big Waves Solar Power – CleanTechnica

Hawaii Riding High On Big Waves Solar Power – CleanTechnica — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 23:10:10 +0000

[…] epic surf and lush landscapes. What many people fail to realize is that the tiny little state of Hawaii is one of the national leaders in solar […]

By: Should We Subsidize Nuclear, When it Can Never Scale? – CleanTechnica

Should We Subsidize Nuclear, When it Can Never Scale? – CleanTechnica — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 16:46:02 +0000

[…] tried the same approach, and now rivals California in solar installation and pricing. It works. Solar is now available for less money a month than the utility energy in about nine states. We all benefit, consumers, and utility-scale solar developers alike, from cheaper solar due to the […]

By: Why We Need More than Rooftops to Win the War Against Climate Change – CleanTechnica

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 00:49:01 +0000

[…] this is for free solar, because I’m telling them about a solar PPA: it competes with the utility with a lower price per kilowatt hour, so the cost issue has been […]

By: Bernard the Green Jobs Guru

Bernard the Green Jobs Guru — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 19:09:21 +0000

Let’s hope this creates some green jobs in Hawaii. There aren’t a lot of them right now. As of today, there were only 12 green jobs posted in Hawaii in more than 30 of the largest green job boards. See http://search.thegreenjobbank.com/search/gr/GreenJobs?ldb=on&location=78.

By: Ben Harack

Ben Harack — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 04:22:53 +0000

I would really hope that Hawaii would opt for solar thermal systems in addition to installing photovoltaics. Solar thermal can give them dispatchable as well as baseload power, while solar PV cannot. Another big issue is that for utility-sized power plants, solar thermal is now a bit cheaper than PV as far as I know. Even paying extra for the heat storage in order to run the plants all night, the cost of electricity per kilowatt-hour is equal or lower for the large solar thermal installations going up now.

Most people don’t understand that in order to run a power grid, you need dispatchable sources so that you have the power when you need it. In the case of hawaii, they don’t have the geographic size to spread out wind turbines to get more steady power like a continent could do. They have to rely on more deterministic power sources. Basically things that they can rely on no matter what.

Solar thermal would be an excellent choice for them in this manner. It can be baseload and dispatchable. It is cheap(ish). It can be paired with fossil fuel backup power using the same turbines for very cheap. This means even in a really bad cloudy situation, you can turn on the fossil fuel heating system and continue producing power without a hiccup.

My volunteer group recently completed an article on this subject. We go into a bit of detail on why we think solar thermal is so awesome. If you are interested check it out.
The article can be found at http://www.visionofearth.org/featured-articles/solar-thermal-power/