wiredInUSA May 2018

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Hawaiian solar

Duke Energy-owned REC Solar and Hawaiian Electric Co have broken ground on a 20MW, fixed-tilt solar power facility at the US Navy’s joint base Pearl Harbor- Hickam West Loch annex. Oncecompleted, theWest Loch solar farm will produce the lowest-cost renewable energy in the state at less than 8 cents per kilowatt hour. REC Solar will build the 80,760-panel solar facility, the first grid-scale solar project to be owned and operated by Hawaiian Electric. Over its expected 25-year lifespan, the solar farm will save Hawaiian Electric customers about $109 million, reducing the utility’s use of imported oil by 76,000 barrels annually. The facility will feed

into the island’s power grid and serve all customers on O’ahu. The solar facility is on US Navy-owned land. In exchange for the land, Hawaiian Electricwill provide electrical infrastructure upgrades to Navy facilities. Hawaii’s clean energy mandate calls for 100 percent renewable energy by 2045. Hawaiian Electric is currently seeking qualified proposals for nearly 400MW of grid-scale renewable energy projects for O’ahu, Maui and Hawaii Island, the largest procurement in the state’s history. In the first nine months of 2017, the state generated over 10 percent of its electricity from solar, one of only three states to do so.

wiredInUSA - May 2018

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