Hawaii Electric prices > 30 cents / kWh!

Roderick
Roderick Solar Expert Posts: 253 ✭✭
in Energy Use & Conservation #1
My brother just alerted me to this article http://www.staradvertiser.com/s?action=login&f=y&id=137073998 which says that the price of electricity has actually gone down recently...
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jan 11, 2012

Residential electric rates fell on Oahu in January for the first time in four months, but Hawaiian Electric Co. cautioned customers that high fuel prices will keep upward pressure on electric rates in the near term

The residential rate charged by HECO fell to 32.6 cents per kilowatt-hour from a record-high 35.1 cents per kilowatt-hour in December...

No wonder photovoltaic is taking off there. I hear that installers have kept prices constant, though, and have backlogs. Someone could go in and really clean up by undercutting the market a little, if you ask me.
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  • niel
    niel Solar Expert Posts: 10,300 ✭✭✭✭
    #2
    Re: Hawaii Electric prices > 30 cents / kWh!

    yes, and attract lots of fly by night sheisters too if the state does not regulate who does the installing.
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  • jkhawaii
    jkhawaii Solar Expert Posts: 30 ✭
    #3
    Re: Hawaii Electric prices > 30 cents / kWh!

    I pay over 200 a month for electric. my brother in Oregon pays less than that and he has to heat his home in the winter!
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  • niel
    niel Solar Expert Posts: 10,300 ✭✭✭✭
    #4
    Re: Hawaii Electric prices > 30 cents / kWh!

    jkhawaii,
    yes, it is expensive where you are, but i think it isn't so much the cost of the fuel itself even though that is a factor, but more a high cost of transporting that fuel to the islands. even with that i would not think it should be quite that high. i could be wrong.

    also note that even if your brother is heating with resistance heat (not a good idea) that he would not have a high cooling bill like you would nearly year round.

    i'm wondering why there wouldn't be an effort to generate electric with some of that geothermal energy. you could be away from the main volcanic tube and still get high enough temps to power a genny?
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  • jkhawaii
    jkhawaii Solar Expert Posts: 30 ✭
    #5
    Re: Hawaii Electric prices > 30 cents / kWh!

    we have some wind farms popping up, the "Big Island" has some geothermal I think. I'm on Oahu no active volcanos on my island. Electricity here is also a Monopoly, no sharing power between states.
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  • niel
    niel Solar Expert Posts: 10,300 ✭✭✭✭
    #6
    Re: Hawaii Electric prices > 30 cents / kWh!

    that makes sense for them to employ wind as it may be a bit more on hand and reliable than shipments of fuel.

    you don't need an active volcano to tap the high temps below. i suppose the biggest problem may be finding the right spot to tap it without having to ruin too many drill tips going through the old lava layers.

    electric around here used to be a monopoly too. you don't need to tie between states (aka the mainland grid system) to have competition as all you need is a generating source attached to the present system and then allow people a choice of who bills you. even though what you have there is small, it can still be considered a smaller isolated grid system.
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  • Robin Gudgel
    Robin Gudgel Registered Users, Solar Expert Posts: 58 ✭✭
    #7
    Re: Hawaii Electric prices > 30 cents / kWh!

    I have a house on the big Island that sits empty most of the time. There is a 5KW Fronius system installed. I sometimes get Helco bills for a couple hundred dollars per month even when I'm not there! (Winter time) I guess the pool pumps and fisn pond pump and fridge use a lot of juice. Gotta get more PV.
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  • icarus
    icarus Solar Expert Posts: 5,436 ✭✭✭✭
    #8
    Re: Hawaii Electric prices > 30 cents / kWh!

    Robin,

    If you need some one to use the house in Hawaii, and make use of some of that electricity,, let me know,

    Tony
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