Meteorologist and Reporter
HONOLULU (Island News) — After Hurricane Lala, power outages harmed many island businesses, but Hawaii solar installation companies have seen a boom to their business, with battery packs and battery generators becoming hot commodities.
The phones have been ringing off the hook at Hawaii Energy Connection in Halawa Valley.
“Business has probably quintupled, right? It’s huge. Even for me, I just can’t keep up right now,” said Eddie Im, a Senior Consultant with Hawaii Energy Connection.
After Hurricane Lala, power outages harmed many island businesses, but Hawaii solar installation companies have seen a boom to their business, with battery packs and battery generators becoming hot commodities.
After the extended outages, that lasted days for some people, customers are calling. He says some have solar but don’t have a battery backup, or residents look to add renewable energy to their home — that can also store power.
“People who didn’t even think about batteries before or didn’t want to even spend money on it, now there is a huge rush on,” said Im.
It has been so busy, he expects to be soon sold out of products for the rest of the year.
There is also other bad news for those looking for immediate protection for the rest of the hurricane season.
“We have a process to go through. HECO to get approvals. We have to pull building permits. If you live in a townhouse, if you live in a flood zone, those permits take a little bit longer. So there’s no way we can guarantee those people that, ‘Hey, can we get it in soon?’,” added Im.
“If people are looking for a product that can immediately help them, then we have a portable battery solution, which is pretty robust<‘ said Eric Carlson, with Revolusun.
At Revoluson, in addition to adding home battery setups to solar systems, they also offer portable batteries that don’t need any permits – so you can plug right into the power.
The smallest one costs $300, but systems that can connect to more power banks and power ore appliances can cost thousands.
“People take them home, they charge them up, and and put them away, and when the power goes out, they can wheel them out and and plug in whatever appliances that they need,” said Carlson.
He says they are already 80% sold out of those portable battery packs. But adds they will fly in more deliveries, if demand stays up.
That will largely depend on just how busy our hurricane season turns out to be.
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Meteorologist and Reporter
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