Hawaii's Feed-In Tariff: More Information Needed, Pronto - Big Backers Like Hawaii But Need Details, Economics

In my time working on the U.S. Mainland (I'm splitting time there now between SF and HNL), I've been talking to a lot of top-tier venture capitalists, energy project financiers, and investment bankers involved in green energy. After finding out that I was from Hawaii, a number of them have asked me about the state's new Feed-In Tariff. They wanted detailed information so that they could see if clean energy projects in Hawaii might pencil out. Sadly, I had to tell them that the FIT at present does not have a detailed framework around it. There is no pricing schedule yet (as far as I can tell) nor is there any roadmap for when this will occur. I could be speaking out of turn - but I did talk to some people in Hawaii's clean energy industry who expressed similar frustrations. They all said that its great HECO and the state are finally on board with a FIT. But it has to go from conceptual and a mere statement to workable details that will let potential investors work out the economics.

Much of Silicon Valley's clean energy elite vacations in Hawaii. Several expressed interest in building multi-megawatt projects in the islands, in part because they enjoy spending time there and would love to do business in Hawaii. If anyone out there has this information (in terms of true tariff numbers that will be paid to alt energy and details around certification, amount that might be put into the grid, peak and non-peak pricing) I'd love to hear it so I can tell the story better out here. If this information has not been worked out, then let's get on it so Hawaii can really start to crank on alternative energy generation and move quickly towards the state mandate of 20% total power coming from alternative sources. Mahalo for reading!