By Staff Reports
(Honolulu and Kahului)– Maui Electric Company is seventh in the nation and Hawaiian Electric Company is tenth in the annual watts-per-customer rankings of the Solar Electric Power Association. In 2011, Maui Electric Company added 100.2 solar watts per customer, up from 22.8 in 2010 and Hawaiian Electric added 82.9 solar watts per customer in 2011 up from 33.2 the year before.
“A high ranking is recognition of the continuing growth of solar power, almost all roof-top panels, across Hawaii,” said Scott Seu, Hawaiian Electric vice president for energy resources. “And it is great to see other utilities across the country adding solar and jumping into the top ten. We are very happy with our standing and we are determined to continue adding customer-sited and utility scale solar power as quickly as possible.”
Rankings were announced at the 2011 Solar Electric Power Association annual Utility Solar Conference in Tucson, Arizona this week.
“We congratulate Maui Electric Company and Hawaiian Electric Company for being solar power leaders in the electric utility sector,” said Julia Hamm, SEPA president and CEO. “The Hawaiian Electric companies continue to allow a significant amount of solar energy to be integrated into their grids last year which bring the many benefits of clean solar energy to its customers.”
Overall, in 2011, utilities interconnected more than 62,000 PV systems of all sizes, according to SEPA findings. These new systems resulted in almost 1,500 megawatts of new utility solar capacity, more than twice as much as was added in 2010, which itself had been a record year. Both the number of systems and the percentage of growth make solar electricity the fastest growing electric source in the U.S. in 2011.
Altogether, the Top 10 utilities reported adding more than 1,000 megawatts of solar electricity capacity in 2011. Overall, more than 240 utilities surveyed reported nearly 1,500 megawatts of new solar, equivalent to about six natural gas power plants.
“SEPA’s findings clearly show that utilities with growing solar resources represent a cross-section of the industry – investor-owned, municipal and rural electric cooperative utilities, large and small, from coast to coast,” said Ms. Hamm. “Their success is showing that solar can be a generation resource today for virtually any utility.”
The full Top 10 report with additional details about the total solar capacity of U.S. utilities, rankings by regions, geographical diversity and other utility solar trends will be available in late May at www.SEPATop10.org.