Hawaiian Electric Co. has taken the top leadership award in adopting solar from the Vote Solar Initiative, a nonprofit focused on climate change and increasing the use of solar energy. 

HECO was honored for increasing access to the electric grid. Hawaii now gets a larger portion of its electricity from solar than any other state, according to a Vote Smart Inititaive press release. 

Hawaii’s solar industry added 12,215 systems for Oahu, Maui County and Hawaii Island in 2012, exceeding the total of the previous 10 years combined. Indeed, cumulative solar power has doubled year-over-year since 2008 when net metering began. This rate of growth brings many economic and environmental benefits, but also presents new challenges to a grid not originally designed with distributed generation in mind. To manage high growth while maintaining safety, reliability, and power quality across the transmission and distribution infrastructure, Hawaiian Electric proactively engaged in a multi-party collaboration with local solar advocates and adopted a pioneering framework to allow more rooftop solar systems to connect to the grid.

This is a big improvement from past years when HECO has scored poorly on working to integrate more solar into its electric grids. 

– Sophie Cocke

(ProVision Solar)