Hawaii
Energy Policy Forum > 2002
Articles
Haiku Couple Taps Power Of The Sun
Harry Eagar, Staff Writer
April 17, 2002
The Maui News
HAIKU - When Peter and Jane
Adams decided they could never afford to retire in the Bay
Area, they also figured
they
could afford to retire to Maui by selling their Bay Area
home and "retiring" to Haiku while still working.
Electricity and electric bills were very much on their minds,
said Jane Adams, since they had just gone through California's "adventure" with
blackouts and skyrocketing bills.
And, since they are both
computer specialists who would have several computers on
duty all the time, both price and reliability
of electric power were critical to their work.
So they decided
to generate their own electricity, but not to go off the
Maui Electric Co. grid. Instead, by taking
advantage of new legislation, they hooked their Haiku house
to Maui Electric's lines, and when the sun shines, they
sell electricity back to the utility.
Being a generator with renewable
fuels was also "just
so consistent," said Jane Adams, a consultant on network
computer systems. "If we are on an isolated island,
it helps to provide some power."
They called in engineer
Laf Young to design a solar electric/solar thermal installation
that would qualify for "net energy
metering."
It cost $28,000, but the Adamses expect it
will have paid for itself sometime in the sixth year. The
payback is speeded
up by a federal tax credit of 10 percent of the completed
cost, a state tax credit of 35 percent, and an accelerated,
five-year depreciation schedule. The solar thermal water
heater also qualified for a $1,000 subsidy (paid to the
qualified contractor, Sonshine Solar Corp., by MECO).
Because they plan to open a nursery, to be called Haiku
Tropicals and specializing in vaireya rhododendrons, they
qualified
as a commercial operation. If it were a residential setup,
there would be no federal tax credit and the state credit
would be a maximum of $1,750, but the MECO subsidy would
be available. Young, who has been engineering and building
off-grid and renewable power systems in Hawaii for decades,
says that a residential-size system would not pay for itself
for 30 years, unless electric rates continue to rise. But
if they should rise at 7 percent per year, the payback
would take only 19 years. At 10 percent, it would take
17 years.
This assumes an efficient system that does produce a surplus
of electricity much of the time to sell into the MECO grid.
In
cloudy Haiku, that will not be all the time, which is why
it is important to be on the public utility network.
But Peter Adams says he noticed one morning that the meter
had stopped as early as "a quarter to 8 in the morning."That
is, the sun was barely up, but already his solar photovoltaic
array was producing enough juice to run the numerous computers,
the washer, refrigerator, dishwasher, lights, etc. (The appliances
are all high-efficiency models that consume relatively little
power. The solar thermal water heater feeds hot water into
an 80-gallon tank that maintains a temperature of 140 degrees
through the night. A Tagaki propane flash heater backs up
the solar water.)
Young says the 48 Siemens SP-70 single-crystal
solar electric panels produce a peak of 3.3 kilowatts of
direct current
at 408 volts. After going through a German-made Sonny Boy
power inverter, the setup can deliver as many as 2.5 kw
of alternating current, which can be used by a computer.
During
the first 24 hours of operation, the Adamses sold 8 kwh
to MECO.
Although the solar thermal collector sits on the housetop,
as with most local installations, in order to get maximum
output from the photovoltaic panels, Young designed a south-facing
shed at optimum azimuth and tilt angles for the site, a
few hundred yards mauka of the Pauwela cannery. The shed
doubles
as a tractor barn/toolshed for the nursery.
The Adamses are
pleased with the outcome so far. What Jane Adams sarcastically
calls "California's lovely adventure" with
electricity deregulation "convinced us we had an opportunity
to do it right." Peter Adams, a senior programmer at
Apple, says his employer has been supportive about his telecommuting,
and working from his home with its views over the ocean, "I
almost feel like I'm on the Apple campus."
Another advantage
of being on the grid, he says, is that mortgage lenders
will lend as normal. With off-grid power
systems, mortgage lenders cannot resell loans in the national
market, which makes them more hesitant to write loans.
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