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At least one satellite was lost. It was developed by the University of Hawaii @ Manoa (see this article).

Also known as rent seeking behaviour.

Maybe, maybe not. Electrical companies in the USA are generally highly regulated, and in a state like Hawaii said move is going to be both highly visible and unpopular. IE the state government IS going to get involved, so the power company needs to have a good explanation ready.

Let's say an incident kicks the local substation off the grid - what do you think happens?

Right now? Roughly 90% of the area goes dark, despite there being more than enough solar to power the area at the moment. Those that stay lit are the ones with backup generators or (slightly)more expensive inverter systems that aren't dependent upon the 'heartbeat' of the grid and will automatically isolate themselves so they aren't putting power on the grid(which presumably will shortly have line workers on it).

What will happen is that even at the extreme end of the solar ownership graph there are enough people, small businesses etc without their own generating capacity but plenty of fridges, pool pumps etc that the total consumed in that area is still much less than the total generated.

If you read the links, they're only refusing to allow new solar hookups when solar production EXCEEDS minimum local daytime demand, possibly resulting in backfeed past the substation. -
FTA: In neighborhoods where the daytime minimum load(DML) for PV has gone above 100 percent, HECO may require an interconnectivity study and circuit upgrades that could cost a homeowner several thousands of dollars.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory seems to agree that it's a legitimate concern for the power company.

Though it seems that HECO backed off some a couple months ago. They now allow small installations up to 120% of DML.

So, going fairly real-world and given that you're explicitly specifying a 'world-leading' solar install, they'd probably be somewhere around 200% DML, having paid the power company any monies necessary for the modifications(or gotten the company to pay).

At which point, given your scenario they'd be closer to the DML(not running AC is a big one) so theoretically there would be enough power for the area to operate normally if it wasn't for safety regulations.

it will be asking for less than anywhere else but will still be getting quite a bit off the grid and won't be sending anything back.

At 120%+ they will be sending power back at least occasionally.

Thus all locally generated power is used locally which means nearly zero line losses and no conversion up from 110/240V to 11kV or whatever so no losses there either.

True so long as < 20% of the community has solar panels. Thing is, when solar panels become cheaper than utility power there's a strong motivation to install them. Given an ideal area like Hawaii(lots of sunlight and expensive local power), and you can hit that point very quickly. ~450k households, 20% would be 90k. They were installing 3k systems a month for a while.

Household solar is still a tiny proportion of generating capacity and even if it reaches saturation the electricity consumption of local retail, light industry etc is going to take all excess and ask for many times more in just about every situation.

The problem with this is that the moment you assume that retail and light industry will 'take up the slack' because solar homes are generating excess power you're back to needing transformers, switches, and transmission lines designed for bidirectional power transfer.

Commercial power users also tend to pay less

but you have been pushing complete and utter bullshit very hard despite my initially polite rebuttal

Perhaps you see it as bullshit, but now I think part of the problem is that you were conflating me with Blindseer, causing you to make assumptions about my views and going ballistic. It doesn't help that I generally respond to personal attacks by becoming more abrasive myself.

A lot of the problem is that your posts mostly seem to be attacking me, not my statements. That's bad debating, not very useful. You're not going to change my views by merely doing the equivalent of screaming 'YOU'RE WRONG!!!' at me. I will change them if they turn out to be incorrect, but you're going to have to prove it. Really, that's what I kept asking for. Pointing out avoided power plants a dozen posts ago would have short-circuited a lot of this.

BTW, Hawaii is hitting the 20% mark and the local power company is actually refusing to let more homes with solar panels hook up to the grid. Well, at least requiring permission and thousands of dollars in feasibility studies and grid upgrades, which amounts to the same thing...

These days solar and wind are increasingly filling that niche.

At least in the states, the marginal cost of solar/wind is so low that you want to use as much of it as you can, however it's not 100% reliable(maybe when we get some more interconnects; the continental USA is actually 4-5 power grids right now). We really need more load balancing - things like shutting off high-demand appliances like AC units and water heaters during high demand times*, or even just when solar/wind isn't producing like it normally does.

Hydro in the USA is already pretty much maxed out, and usage is tightly controlled by environmental concerns. It's still a good peaking plant, but we have a severe water shortage in many reservoirs.

So most peaking plants are natural gas, and it's expanding. But that's expensive for electricity. Me, I'm kinda hoping that EOL Tesla batteries can still be used for a number of years to help provide peaking power....

*Though I do advocate solar water heaters.

The cheapest route sounds like to get fired from your job, go on welfare to get your food and housing paid for, then get free health care. Who needs to work? That was the plan wasn't it?

That must be why no one works in countries where they have national health care. /sarcasm

Hell, Hawaii has universal health care, beautiful weather, and approximately a billion things any sane person would rather do than work. I'd submit to you furthermore that I and many people would prefer to live in a shack in Hawaii than in a mansion in, well, most places. So if your hypothesis is correct, we'd expect Hawaii unemployment to be extremely high, as people don't have any motivation to work if they get free health care.

Hmm... it appears that the unemployment there is well below the national average. That seems inconsistent with your hypothesis.

My hypothesis is that very few people work -only- because their health insurance or food depends on it, most people work their jobs in the hope that they'll be able to thrive. The american dream is not to just live on a handout.

I can see how it would be convinient to believe that people are basically lazy and will stop working if you give them any help. It gives you a sense of superiority some people like, and is a good reason you shouldn't have to pay any taxes. I just don't see the evidence to support that position though.

"Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawaii, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obamaâ(TM)s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures," Fukino said. http://www.kitv.com/politics/17860890/detail.html?rss=hon&psp=news

"As things turned out, when the Obama campaign made a copy of his Certificate of Live Birth from the State of Hawaii available on the internet in June 2008, it validated none of these rumors: The certificate shows his full name to be "Barack Hussein Obama II," it lists is father's race as "African" and his mother's as "Caucasian,", it contains no information about religion, and it reports his birthplace as being Honolulu, Hawaii."
Morover, both of Honolulu's major newspapers (the Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin) published announcements in August 1961 documenting the birth, in Honolulu, of a son to "Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama" on August 4, 1961." http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp

• Obama has never provided proof that he was born in Hawaii.

  When questions about his birth appeared, he published a scanned copy of his Certificate of Live Birth on his website. FactCheck.org and PolitiFact.com both show copies of it.

• That Certificate of Live Birth isn't the same as a birth certificate.

  For purposes of proving birth, it is accepted by all other states and the federal government as proof. You can use it to get a passport.

• It looks like a fraud done by a computer, for example it doesn't list the hospital.

  The COLB is a short form copy that does not have all the details of the long form original like the hospital. Because some individuals are not born in a hospital, the short form copy lists only those fields which are relevant to all births like "Place of Birth". When requesting proof of birth, the State of Hawaii, like many other states, does not send someone down to the archives to photocopy old records. Instead, the State of Hawaii will look up the data, print out a COLB, put a seal on it, and put a stamped signature.

• But there was no seal or signature on the so-called "copy" I saw on the website.

  Both the seal and the signature appear on the back of the form which was not scanned. The seal is raised and would not easily appear on a scan anyways. Viewing the document at an angle, you can see the seal. Factcheck.org has seen the COLB and has taken other pictures.

• The signature doesn't look real.

  Most government signatures for documents like this are not hand signatures; they are stamped signatures.

• Still, it doesn't look like any other birth certificate I've seen.

  The look of birth certificates varies from state to state and in some cases, county to county. The COLB presented by Obama is the same form as any other COLB from Hawaii.

• But the COLB only records that someone was born somewhere. It doesn't actually prove he was born in Hawaii.

  The COLB lists the Place of Birth. In Obama's case, it lists "Honolulu".

• But you can get a COLB for people born outside Hawaii and the US even.

  Starting in 1982, the State of Hawaii allowed parents to register their children who were born elsewhere as an secondary means of proof just like a passport proves citizenship in lieu of a Certificate of Naturalization or a birth certificate. However, the COLB would not deviate the Place of Birth from the original birth certificate. If a child was not born in Hawaii, the COLB would list their Place of Birth as some place other than "Hawaii". This registration was not an option for Obama's mother as he was born in 1961.

• Why is the certificate number blacked out? This means it was altered.

  Obama's campaign says blacking out the numbers was a cautionary move just in case the number was security sensitive just like you would not post a SSN online. As it turns out, it was not. FactCheck shows the number.

• Just because he has a COLB doesn't mean he has an original.

  Because of the voluminous questions surrounding this issue, the Director of Health of Hawaii Dr. Chiyome Fukino, and registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka have viewed the long form original in private and affirm Obama was born in Hawaii. The governor of Hawaii considers this matter closed and will not entertain any more inquiries.

• There are birth records that Hawaii won't let anyone have access to, like the original long form. What are they hiding?

  All birth records are always deemed private by the State of Hawaii. This is not an exception made for Obama. No one but the family can ask for them.

• How do we know Obama's Democratic friends aren't j

Thanks for proving my point because you seem to spouting the uninformed rumors that conspiracy nuts are spreading.

• Obama has never provided proof that he was born in Hawaii.

  When questions about his birth appeared, he published a scanned copy of his Certificate of Live Birth on his website. FactCheck.org and PolitiFact.com both show copies of it.

• That Certificate of Live Birth isn't the same as a birth certificate.

  For purposes of proving birth, it is accepted by all other states and the federal government as proof. You can use it to get a passport.

• It looks like a fraud done by a computer, for example it doesn't list the hospital.

  The COLB is a short form copy that does not have all the details of the long form original like the hospital. Because some individuals are not born in a hospital, the short form copy lists only those fields which are relevant to all births like "Place of Birth". When requesting proof of birth, the State of Hawaii, like many other states, does not send someone down to the archives to photocopy old records. Instead, the State of Hawaii will look up the data, print out a COLB, put a seal on it, and put a stamped signature.

• But there was no seal or signature on the so-called "copy" I saw on the website.

  Both the seal and the signature appear on the back of the form which was not scanned. The seal is raised and would not easily appear on a scan anyways. Viewing the document at an angle, you can see the seal. Factcheck.org has seen the COLB and has taken other pictures.

• The signature doesn't look real.

  Most government signatures for documents like this are not hand signatures; they are stamped signatures.

• Still, it doesn't look like any other birth certificate I've seen.

  The look of birth certificates varies from state to state and in some cases, county to county. The COLB presented by Obama is the same form as any other COLB from Hawaii.

• But the COLB only records that someone was born somewhere. It doesn't actually prove he was born in Hawaii.

  The COLB lists the Place of Birth. In Obama's case, it lists "Honolulu".

• But you can get a COLB for people born outside Hawaii and the US even.

  Starting in 1982, the State of Hawaii allowed parents to register their children who were born elsewhere as an secondary means of proof just like a passport proves citizenship in lieu of a Certificate of Naturalization or a birth certificate. However, the COLB would not deviate the Place of Birth from the original birth certificate. If a child was not born in Hawaii, the COLB would list their Place of Birth as some place other than "Hawaii". This registration was not an option for Obama's mother as he was born in 1961.

• Why is the certificate number blacked out? This means it was altered.

  Obama's campaign says blacking out the numbers was a cautionary move just in case the number was security sensitive just like you would not post a SSN online. As it turns out, it was not. FactCheck shows the number.

• Just because he has a COLB doesn't mean he has an original.

  Because of the voluminous questions surrounding this issue, the Director of Health of Hawaii Dr. Chiyome Fukino, and registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka have viewed the long form original in private and affirm Obama was born in Hawaii. The governor of Hawaii considers this matter closed and will not entertain any more inquiries.

• There are birth records that Hawaii won't let anyone have access to, like the original long form. What are they hiding?

  All birth records are always deemed private by the State of Hawaii. This is not an exceptio