Trending
When people talk about how expensive it is to live here on Maui, there are many things that come to mind: housing, food, gas and electricity to name just a few.
You would think that with all the access to natural sources of energy -- the sun, the wind and ocean -- the cost of electricity at least would be lower. But the fact is that it simply isn't. For some, they have been able to manage their costs through rooftop solar, but others have been left behind. This could be due to where they live, what kind of structure they live in, their economic situation or other complications.
Thankfully, this is set to change.
The Public Utilities Commission recently approved a new type of Community-Based Renewable Energy (CBRE) program where renewable energy projects can be built and the energy credited to a subscriber's utility accounts.
If that doesn't make sense, think of being able to buy a portion of your energy from a renewable energy project but through the grid, regardless of your location.
By joining one of the CBREs, qualified residents could see a reduction in their total electric bill. For the projects that Maui County hopes to host, qualifying for the program would be very similar to qualifying for affordable rental or housing programs, and based upon a household's earning.
This sort of program helps to make renewable energy not just more affordable but more accessible. Besides the cost of solar panels, there are other impediments, such as their location, building type or access to the electric utility grid.
It is also a program that county governments can play a big part in getting off of the ground. Here's what we can do:
• Provide land under a grant lease so that the projects can be more economical by using county land that otherwise doesn't have a better use.
• Subscribe county accounts to a project so that the projects can secure their own financing more easily but allow the county's meter participation to be reduced or eliminated as the project fills up with subscribers.
• Require that the provider serve low- to moderate-income participants in exchange for No. 1 and 2 above.
The goal is the realize the underlining objective of the program as the county sees it, that is to continue on a track that allows for more renewable energy into the grid while at the same time helping those who don't otherwise have access to renewable energy and could benefit from the savings the most.
CBREs are not new, and examples of them can be found all across the globe.
In Denmark, the first modern wind turbine was built by a community back in 1978 to supply local schools with cheap, clean energy. In Germany, citizen ownership of community renewable energy has been going on since 2011. In Scotland, there are 249 community energy projects.
And Australia is just getting started on the community energy projects but already had quite a few planned, including community wind farms in Victoria and western Australia as well as a solar array on the New South Wales south coast.
In the United States, Colorado became the first in the nation to pass a statewide shared renewables legislation in 2010. Today, they have about 30 shared solar energy projects, one of them built on a brownfield near Colorado Springs that provides power to the local library system, the University of Colorado and hundreds of nearby families.
I could go on but you get the picture. Communities all over the world are already doing this and benefiting from it. There's no reason why Maui County can't follow in their footsteps.
* "Our County," a column from Maui County Mayor Alan Arakawa, discusses county issues and activities of county government. The column usually appears on the first and third Fridays of the month.