KAUNAKAKAI, Molokai – On the Hawaiian island of Molokai, time moves slowly and life is intentionally simple. Many Molokai residents rely upon the fruits and vegetables they grow or the fish they catch at sea to subsist as their ancestors have for centuries. Additional supplies that cannot be grown or acquired from within, arrive with a high price tag from the U.S. mainland via Oahu, urging most individuals to think locally.

This idea of self-sufficiency overlaps with the increasing use of photovoltaic systems across the island. The technology employs island companies and reduces the necessity of importing foreign oil and gasoline (which costs, on average, almost $5 per gallon on Molokai) from the mainland.

Just last month, Molokai’s Kualapu‘u Public Conversion Charter School, which has an enrollment of more than 90 percent Native Hawaiian students, completed the installation of its own PV powerhouse.

With a 50-kilowatt inverter and 189 total panels, the school will now be more self-sufficient – putting an end to its once $10,000-per-month electricity bill.

“Financially it makes sense,” Kualapu‘u Principal Lydia Trinidad, Native Hawaiian said. “On Molokai, I think we have the highest electricity costs in the islands.”

Trinidad said that due to the island’s relative isolation, the island lends itself to being more self-sufficient. Tourism, agricultural production, the housing market and economic growth on the island are minimal. Molokai receives the fewest tourist visits and dollars of any typically-visited Hawaiian island. Attempts to develop a major theme park and resort now showcase boarded windows and empty streets. Former pineapple plantations and cattle ranches are now vacant. Vacant multimillion dollar homes that now dot the island’s west end stay on the market for months unable to be sold.

“We’ve had situations when the barge hasn’t come in and we’ve had no supplies, no toilet paper, for example,” Trinidad said. “So, sustainability is a theme that is island-wide.”

Trinidad said the school began to develop the system in 2008 when oil prices skyrocketed to nearly $150 per barrel driving electricity costs to almost $10,000 each month. The school directors saw the reality of making a choice between educational services and electricity bills.

“We thought, ‘we have to do something about this,’” Trinidad said.

So the school contracted with ProVision Solar of Hilo to install a PV powerhouse. ProVision President Marco Mangelsdorf explained that the school is operating on a net-metering basis with Maui Electric Company. When the school is not using all of the solar electricity generated from the system, the excess is accepted by the local utility company.

Rather than paying the school for this surplus power as is the case in other U.S. states, the school is issued energy credits that can be used on days when the school needs to draw energy from Maui Electric Company. The surplus kilowatt-hours (kWhs) are credited to the school at the current retail rate, which in November was about 34 cents per kWh.

According to the recently-approved decision and order by the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission, ratepayers across most of the state (except for the island of Kauai) now have the option to be paid for their surplus power. However, in this type of agreement, the power company pays back to the provider a significant amount less than what it charges (18.9 cents per kWh). Energy producers also have to pay an application fee of more than $200 and a $25 per month service charge to participate in the program.

This inequity in the utility company’s docket is similar to fledgling alternative energy charters in other states that have since been updated and brought into line.

The public school is home to approximately 400 pre-kindergarten through sixth grade students and offers a Hawaiian language-immersion program in which the students learn their core classes in Hawaiian. The school receives part of its funding from the Kamehameha Schools Administration, which operates across the islands with the goals of nurturing Native Hawaiian culture and growing schools with predominantly Native Hawaiian students. The Kualapu‘u School places educational emphasis on the cultural experiences of a rural community.

Trinidad said it is the school’s plan to integrate curriculum about the photovoltaic system into the classroom topics so the students will understand where their energy is coming from.

“First, they just have to know what it is and that some of their energy is coming from the sun.”

Trinidad explained that the implementation of solar power at the school directly parallels the Native Hawaiian traditional belief that the islands provide everything necessary to exist.

“I believe that this Native Hawaiian value is a universal value of using all the gifts that have been given to you. PV is a gift – a modern-day gift – the sun is a gift and we have to use this technology that we have been given.”

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