Tourism is on the wane, but commercial solar power is exploding.

There's been a dramatic quickening — some say a revolution — in commercial solar installation in Hawai'i. We've heard of photovoltaic panels on residential rooftops, but now we're hearing about large commercial solar installations, too.

Let's look at a few of these projects and see where things are going.

LANA'I LIGHTS UP

La Ola solar farm on Lana'i was dedicated in January. It's the biggest single-site solar project in the state, built on 10 acres of old pineapple land by David Murdock and Castle and Cooke. It has 7,400 PV panels. It can generate 1.5 megawatts and provide 30 percent of Lana'i's peak power.

La Ola cost $19 million. Under the power purchase agreement, MECO will pay Castle and Cooke 27 cents per kilowatt for the first 10 years, 30 cents for the second 10 years, and 33 cents for the last five years. This will make money for Castle and Cooke, and will change life on Lana'i.

SUNETRIC AT COMMONS

Sunetric, formerly Suntech, is Hawai'i's largest locally owned solar integrator-installer. It recently completed the state's largest rooftop solar project at Kona Commons, a 130,000-square-foot shopping center developed by the McNaughton Group and the Kobayashi Group.

The 800-kilowatt project generates 1.2 million kWh annually, enough to power 130 homes. It features 17 cutting-edge rooftop PV systems, and tracks and bills usage by each tenant. The center provides its tenants with power below HELCO's rates. It also earns revenue for its owners.

REC AT THE AUTOPLEX

REC Solar has just celebrated the installation of an 800-kilowatt PV system on the three dealership roofs of the Tony Group Autoplex in Waipi'o. The system will generate 20 percent of their energy needs.

The business case for the project was compelling.

"It not only allows us to realize immediate savings in utility costs, it also minimizes the impact of future increases in energy costs," said Stan Masamitsu, Tony Group president. It will save $104,000 in the first year and $5 million over the 25-year warranty period.

The integrator-installer was REC Solar, based in San Luis Obispo, Calif., an affiliate of REC Group, a 12-year-old Norwegian company that manufactures and sells solar panels worldwide.

SOPOGY AT KONA

Sopogy is a local tech company specializing in Concentrated Solar Reflector technology. Its solar farms are built for service to utilities and for large institutional projects. Sopogy is building a 500-kilowatt CSR demonstration plant at NELHA in Kona.

This will be the first large-scale CSP solar farm in Hawai'i. Sopogy has a power purchase agreement by which HELCO will purchase its power. This is the pure distributed energy model in which the producer sells only to the utility, and the utility acts as distributor to the public.

Sopogy is selling its CSR facilities from Hawai'i to California, Spain, the Middle East and Asia. The average CSR facility has 10,000 collectors. This will generate 10 megawatts, enough to power thousands of homes. These are heavy-duty systems, intended to replace fossil fuel generators.

CAMPBELL PARK

Hoku Scientific is installing a 1.5-megawatt PV solar plant on 12 acres at Campbell Industrial Park.

When completed, it will be the largest PV facility on O'ahu, and will power 6,700 homes.

PV HOST PROGRAM

Next month, HECO will ask the PUC to approve its new PV Host program. Under that program, HECO rents the roof of a commercial, institutional or government building and then engages a third-party developer to build a PV facility there. The developer would then sell the PV power to HECO and to the roof owner at reduced long-term rates.

Although the rules were recently changed to allow utilities to take the federal solar tax credits, HECO prefers to allow and encourage the local PV industry to take these credits under the PV Host program. HECO's program will ultimately benefit all nonresidential big-roof owners, and is likely to make Hawai'i's PV growth even more impressive.

HECO wants to leave the generation of power in the hands of renewable developers like these because that will lower its capital costs. It hopes to organize PV Host facilities on a large scale with smart grid technology so that it can deliver cost-effective energy to ratepayers.

FUTURE FACTORS

The Hawai'i Solar Energy Association wants to make energy tax credits refundable and transferrable — a strong incentive to investors to finance PV facilities. It would expand the number of those facilities and open the market to PV on government buildings. A bill is pending.

Storage systems will soon come of age to balance firm with nonfirm power, although we're not sure exactly how yet. Will HECO build those systems, or will renewable producers build them? It will depend on the emerging technology. For economies of scale, HECO should do it. For self-reliance, renewable producers should do it. Perhaps both will do it.

Mark Duda of Sunetric says that "we are coming to an era where people will be able to generate and store the power they use in their homes and businesses. By 2020, you'll have something on your roof that runs your house day and night and charges your car. You'll have choices."

THE SUN IS RISING

Net metering PV installations in 2008 exceeded those of any previous year. O'ahu had 221 installations; Maui, Moloka'i and Lana'i had 135; and the Big Island had 115. Most of these installations are commercial.

Hawai'i, with its unique advantages, is becoming a magnet for the solar industry. Oil is now $35 a barrel, but as it drifts back up and project economics get better, increasingly more people and companies will move to solar.

It's an exciting time for solar in Hawai'i. Whether you like it for tax purposes, oil independence or climate change, right now solar and especially PV seem to be the most promising and profitable of all the renewables. It's really happening. Let's keep it going.