Lessons From A Battery Sharing Program In Hawaii — It Isn’t Easy Being Green
immediately, if not sooner. And so last March, HECO, the state’s dominant utility company, launched a grand experiment to pay households for sharing the electricity in their residential storage batteries during the hours of high demand. Six months later, nearly 1,800 families have joined the Battery Bonus program.
In other words, if a typical 5 kWh home battery costs $10,000, the Battery Benefits program will pay the customer a total of $7,250 over the next ten years. That means a big chunk of the cost of a battery is paid for by HECO. In addition, homeowners are now eligible for a 30% federal tax credit whether they have a solar system or not. If this is such a good deal, why isn’t everyone signing up for it? That’s an excellent question.
But getting the right balance of incentives has required several revisions to the program. HECO rushed out an initial version in the summer of 2021 to head off a potential power shortage in the post-coal era, but the incentives weren’t high enough to convince many customers to sign up. After several months, the utility got together with the home solar industry to figure out a more attractive compensation package.
If Hawaiian Electric does end up reducing that compensation down the road, customers would be stuck. If they pull out of Battery Bonus before the 10-year period is up, HECO can claw back a prorated chunk of the upfront bonus payment, which could amount to thousands of dollars.
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