Honolulu, HI – (June 2, 2022) – Holu Hou Energy LLC (“HHE”), a provider of design to service solar plus energy storage systems, including a breakthrough product for the Residential and Multi-Dwelling Unit residential building markets, announces that its leading energy storage systems for residential, multi-dwelling unit residential and commercial applications will play a major roll in the Battery Bonus program introduced by Hawaiian Electric Company, the Hawaiian utility. The battery bonus program was announced in July 2021 for customers on Oahu, and will be utilized to assist the utility in meeting the electricity need of residents during high load periods of the day. A Maui bonus program has also recently been announced.
The Hawaii Public Utility Commission approved an Emergency Demand Response Program (“EDRP”) in June 2021 to address the immediate need to mitigate possible resource shortfalls following the September 2022 retirement of the coal fired electricity plant on Oahu, which supplied about 12% of the state’s total net generation in 2019. It is a bold stroke by the State of Hawaii to directly replace retired coal assets with distributed generation and storage. The delay of construction of multiple utility scale photovoltaic and storage projects created the urgency for Battery Bonus.
The HoluPower system, by virtue of its high-power battery and hybrid inverter, can deliver more energy to the Battery Bonus program than competitor solutions. For example, a customer using an HHE battery will earn $2,000 more than they would with a battery from Tesla. At present, HHE has enrolled 210kW of energy storage at Single-Family Residences, 57.6kW of storage in Multi-Dwelling Units (“MDUs”), and 324kW at commercial sites. The company is targeting a total of between 8 to 10MW of energy storage through the life of the program.
With the battery bonus program, HHE batteries will discharge up to 100% of its capacity (depending on how much of the battery the owner wants to enroll) between the hours of 6 to 8pm. The energy from your battery will flow to the homes load initially, offsetting the owner’s utility usage, with any remaining going out to the grid for a credit from the utility against their bill. If an owner has an EV or other high usage appliance, they can target use during this period so that they reap the maximum benefit of the program as the credit for export is less than the utility rate,
For Single-family and Multi-Dwelling Unit residential applications, the HoluPower energy storage system is a complete, integrated product, including a state of the art 9.6kW hybrid inverter that can control two 15.2 kWh storage batteries and 4 PV strings. The system includes the power electronics, metering, a transformer that enable smooth transition between off-grid and on-grid, and “EnergyShare” Technology for MDU applications. It also includes an energy controller and software app operated in conjunction with the HHE Cloud computing platform for command, control and communications.
