From net metering to storage in Hawaii

The picture to the right, taken at Kahe Point in West Oahu, Hawaii, offers a stark contrast. On the grounds of the Kahe power plant of the Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) the facility’s parking lot displays shiny new hybrid electric vehicles parked next to EV charging stations. This is the future of transportation in this most populated island of Hawaii, as well as Hawaii’s other islands, and for that matter in the U.S. as a whole. But looming in the backdrop is one of HECO’s oldest power plants in Hawaii, an oil-fired 650 MW beast built way back in 1963. In this very scenic part of Oahu just a walk away from the Pacific coast and a string of newly built luxury hotels, the Kahe power plant seems a very dirty relic of the past.