LAWA’I – Paul Lucas is looking forward to the day when he can cut the cord. He is nearing the point where solar and photovoltaic panels atop his home and office here generate enough electricity using the power of the
LAWA’I – Paul Lucas is looking forward to the day when he can cut the cord.
He is nearing the point where solar and photovoltaic panels atop his home and office here generate enough electricity using the power of the sun to end his dependence on power from Kauai Electric, and do away with his $300 monthly electric bill.
He has 20 panels now, and is awaiting the arrival of 20 more that will allow him to generate actually more than enough power to supply his home and office.
Banks of batteries in his back yard will store enough electricity to power his home and office for two to three days even if there is cloud cover.
Lucas, owner of Solar Engineering & Contracting, is looking forward to going “off the grid,” and sees electrical self-sufficient homes as the wave of the immediate future.
Most folks building new homes want solar and photovoltaic panels as standard equipment, especially on an island where residents and businesses pay some of the highest rates in the country for electricity.
Going off the grid means generating through solar panels enough power to supply a home, thereby not having to depend on Kauai Electric’s grid for power.
He recently installed a $50,000 system atop a Kalaheo house with 40 solar and photovoltaic panels that allows the home’s owner to go off the grid. The homeowner is entering into an agreement with Kauai Electric to sell excess power back to the utility and essentially reduce his bill for electricity used to zero.
That process is called net metering, and allows customers to sell excess power generated through solar and photovoltaic panels back to the utility, above and beyond what they require to run their homes and businesses, and subtract that amount sold to the utility from their monthly bills.
The Kalaheo system powers the main house and a guest home, where two computers and three refrigerators as well as other electric-using appliances are in regular use.
The Kalaheo home is the second on Kaua’i to sign on with KE’s net metering program, established by state law recently. First to sign were Dave and Cris Williams of Princeville, in November.
At that time, there were around 20 other homeowners lining up to participate, according to Kauai Electric.
State Rep. Mina Morita (D, north Kaua’i, east Maui), Hanalei resident and chair of the House Energy & Environmental Protection Committee, worked several years to get that legislation passed.
Lucas, an aerospace engineer by training and solar contractor on Kaua’i for a quarter-century, sees solar and photovoltaic as the future, especially for those building new homes on the island.
Systems pay for themselves in terms of money saved on electric utility bills in five to 15 years, and the panels are so dependable and long-lasting that he has never had to replace one, he said.
The pay-back time is based on a system costing around $33,000, which essentially eliminates a $275 electric bill each month. The monthly bill times 12 gives the annual electric charge, $3,300 at today’s rates, times 10 years, for $33,000.
Federal and state tax credits and a potential rebate from KE reduce the cost and quicken the pay-back schedule, he noted.
And the cost of a system goes down by around one third if the home owner plans to sign a net metering agreement with KE, which eliminates the need for battery storage systems by having KE power instead of the batteries as a backup system in times of rainy weather.
The batteries are about one third of the cost of a system.
He has 20 panels on top of his house, and another 20 being shipped to the island, which will make his home and office electrically self-sufficient.
Lucas could opt for net metering, but is leaning toward literally and figuratively cutting his ties with KE, and creating enough electricity from the sun’s energy to power his home, office, hot-water heaters for family and hot-tub use, and other amenities for himself and his family.
He figures he has installed between 5,000 and 10,000 systems on Kaua’i, and backs his feeling of a solar and photovoltaic future for the state by adding the fact that Hawaiian Electric on the Big Island has formed its own photovoltaic and solar power company.
If Hawaiian Electric didn’t see solar and photovoltaic as the Big Island’s future, it wouldn’t have formed the separate company, he said.
On the North Shore, a photovoltaic system is scheduled to be installed at Hanalei Center which will allow that shopping complex to be electrically self-sufficient.
The panels Lucas has installed on his Lawa’i home and on the Kalaheo roof weigh about 30 pounds each, and with the system he has developed can be installed and operational in two to three days.
For more information, please call 332-8890.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
