You may have read about the “power struggle” in Oahu, Hawaii where the number of photovoltaic solar collectors, combined with other renewables, is now generating 200 megawatts of energy that the antiquated electric grid cannot handle. Or so say those who own the power companies. They worry about sudden power surges that will endanger their equipment and the appliances their customers depend upon. The problem is one that may face the rest of the nation in the future if  more and more people buy into alternative energy and the power companies must upgrade their equipment. Those companies will, of course, pass the costs along to their customers: we know they will not let it affect their bottom line. As a recent story on Yahoo News tells us:

What’s happening in Hawaii is a sign of battles to come in the rest of the United States, solar industry and electric utility executives said. The conflict is the latest variation on what was a controversial issue this year in top solar markets California and Arizona. It was a hot topic at a solar industry conference last week: how to foster the growth of rooftop solar power while easing the concerns of regulated utilities that see its rise as a threat.

The problem in Oahu is considerably more intense than it is elsewhere in this country as 40% of the homeowners on that island have rooftop collectors — as contrasted with 1.4% in California, the state with the next highest proportion of collectors in the country. But the point is that the power companies on the mainland are getting nervous about the loss of income, including increasing payouts they will suffer as more and more people generate their own electricity and sell back to the power companies the electricity they cannot use themselves.

The problem, of course, is that the power companies have the political clout to get laws passed that assure their continued profits — as was the case in Oahu where new customers will have to pay a surcharge to the power companies in order to get permission to install solar collectors in the future. The problem may be very real in Oahu where so many folks have chosen to go the way of alternative energy, but it is a small problem on this continent where so few people have made the same choice. None the less, we can still brace ourselves for the coming battles as sensible people who choose to help to save the planet, and save their electrical costs at the same time, ward off the slings and arrows of the power companies that have very full quivers.