I just returned from my trip from Arizona and am back in Michigan, time to get blogging again. I had to go for the arizona contractor license exam you know. Some analysts have been Hawaii’s praises as pioneer for alternative energy, and most recently they have in fact been sung once again in a new article posted yesterday, October 19, 2010, on the Clean Technica website. By the way if you happen to live in a place like Arizona where the utility companies primarily use gas for heating, this is welcome news, although there are certainly worse energy methods than natural gas overall. All in all, the article in question was published by Reginald Norris, Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Clean Energy Experts, writing as a guest contributor. The title of the piece, “Hawaii Riding High on Big Waves Solar Power,” has the words ‘Big Waves” crossed out.
Calling the Aloha state of Hawaii one of our national leaders in solar energy (which kind of makes sense with all of the ample sunlight over there), Norris cites the fact that Hawaii is in fact the single largest state market for solar water heaters. I am assuming that the state of Michigan, where the natural gas industry is paramount, does not quite make that said list in question, sadly enouph.Here on kauai we would probably use more solar and wind except that Kauai real estate is so damn expensive, it is all kauai vacation rentals it seems like you know. I mean, if you are on the big island it is no problem to put wind farms because real estate is more abundant but on kauai it is simply not cost effective to do that when the same land can make more via Kauai vacation rentals overall. Anyways, He says the total grid-connected photovoltaic capacity installed in Hawaii increased by 48% from 8.6 megawatts in 2008 to 12.7 megawatts in 2009. For his part, he cites as his source the 2009 U.S. Solar Market Trends, Interstate Renewable Energy Council report that had Hawaii ranked second in the nation in 2009 for installed solar power per person.
He added that Hawaii installed more solar power per person than California in 2009.
It should be very interesting to see how this story plays out as we continue as anation to move away from fossil fuels like natural gas and into alternative renewable sources like wind and solar power in general.

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