
Solar Power Battle Puts Hawaii at Forefront of Worldwide Changes - kpozin
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/business/energy-environment/solar-power-battle-puts-hawaii-at-forefront-of-worldwide-changes.html
======
DanBlake
The issue here is the mandate that when you create electricity with solar that
the electric company _must_ buy that electricity from you as you feed it back
into the grid, regardless if they currently need it or not based on demand.
These power companies dont want to become energy storage companies, its too
expensive. They prefer to simply make as much electricity at the moment as is
needed.

I agree with the electric companies on this point. If they dont need the
electricity, why should they be forced to buy it? That will increase costs for
non-solar customers as they end up footing the bill for the battery storage
needed by solar customers. I think the proper way to do these installs is to
have customers always have on site batteries which store the energy for their
own homes use. Yes, its nice to sell back electricity to the grid, but that
feels like a very hackish way to use 'solar'. It makes sense also. If you want
to save money on your electricity, you need to make your own, so you draw less
from the grid- Not make it for someone else when nobody wants it.

Does anyone know if the power company is required to buy _all forms_ of
electricity currently? Could you just setup thousands of solar panels in a
field you own and demand money from the grid? Seems like a easy return on
investment, depending on the cost of panels/equipment.

~~~
crdoconnor
>I agree with the electric companies on this point. If they dont need the
electricity, why should they be forced to buy it?

A) Because they are operating a utility _monopoly_. We are forced to be their
customers. They should be forced to be ours.

B) They _could_ use it, but they would rather sell you the output from their
oil fired power stations because _the profit is higher for them_. That is why
they don't want your solar panels hooked up - _not_ because your neighbors
couldn't use the electricity they generate - because it challenges their
monopoly position and eats into their profit margins.

If this were _truly_ about electric companies not needing the electricity (as
opposed to them viewing any challenge to their monopoly as a 'free market
evil'), then they would be arguing for _market pricing_ for your solar
generated electricity. They are not. They want your solar panels to be
completely disconnected. Ideally you shouldn't even have them at all.

>Yes, its nice to sell back electricity to the grid, but that feels like a
very hackish way to use 'solar'.

Your argument for how energy policy should be set are informed by what you
think " _feels hackish_ "?

~~~
thomaskcr
I'm really surprised people on HN don't see the complexity of having
distributed power generation that you have no visibility on. I don't really
think this is as trivial a problem as people seem to think it is.

As for the situation of selling power back to the grid, I would argue the
solar users are still the customers. The power companies don't want it because
the changes need to be paid for by current customers but only benefit ex-
customers. The solar users are using the grid as a giant battery and an
insurance policy for cloudy days.

If the power companies are paying what they charge, then the laws of physics
say they are losing money due to losses to heat, etc. So of course their
margins are higher on their power.

~~~
crdoconnor
>I'm really surprised people on HN don't see the complexity

I never said it was a trivial problem. I said that it was a problem that the
utility companies have a _vested interest in not solving_.

I'm really surprised that people on HN are blind to this.

>The power companies don't want it because the changes need to be paid for by
current customers but only benefit ex-customers

This is false. The power companies do not want it even if it is paid for by
current customers because even if it is, _it eats away at their profit
margins_. Every kwh generated by a home owner's solar panel is not a kwh they
are being paid for, even if they just use it themselves and don't transmit it
across the grid.

~~~
thomaskcr
At least in Hawaii there are a lot of independent energy producers, so your
statement is appears to be wrong that they only want to sell their own power.
While the majority is their own, it looks like 35%ish is independently
generated.

They don't want to buy back power at the same rate they sell it, and since
they can't control the nodes - the power from solar panels on homes is less
valuable than that from larger independent producers since it costs more to
control a distributed system. I'm sure they would buy it back, but people will
be very angry about what they're willing to pay.

People are also free to get batteries if they don't like what the market
prices are for buying electricity.

> I never said it was a trivial problem. I said that it was a problem that the
> utility companies have a vested interest in not solving.

They probably would solve it, but they know that the cost of solving that
subtracted from the rate they pay their energy producers is low enough that
people will complain and it's not worth it. They probably come out ahead by
not solving that problem, I'm not sure how you can mandate they solve a
problem so people that want to go "off grid" don't have to buy their own
batteries. That's really what they're trying to avoid - there is nothing
preventing people from going completely off grid, they just don't want to buy
their own batteries.

~~~
crdoconnor
>At least in Hawaii there are a lot of independent energy producers, so your
statement is completely false that they only want to sell their own power.

They're not doing that because they want to.

>They don't want to buy back power at the same rate they sell it

They don't want to buy power _at all_. Certainly not if they have existing
capacity that they would rather use. _Definitely_ not if it is a future threat
to their bottom line.

>People are also free to get batteries

Batteries are a much more inefficient way of using power than selling it to
your neighbor.

>They probably would solve it, but they know that the cost of solving that
subtracted from the rate they pay their energy producers is low enough that
people will complain and it's not worth it.

Let's not pretend they're not solving the problem for our benefit. This is
about their profits.

>I'm not sure how you can mandate they solve a problem so people that want to
go "off grid" don't have to buy their own batteries.

Because they are a monopoly and a utility. We mandate they solve problems
because otherwise they will just milk their monopoly for all its worth and the
only party that benefits from that is them.

------
revelation
Hawaii is a particular shit show when it comes to electricity utilities. From
their own page on renewable energy, no less:

 _Electricity can be made from a variety of energy sources. Some are fossil
fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas. Over 90 percent of all the energy
used in Hawaii for electricity, surface and air transportation comes from
imported fossil fuels, mostly oil but some coal. (The synthetic natural gas
used in Hawaii is refined here from crude oil.)_

I think nobody here has the patience to wait for this particular dynosaur-
consuming monster to catch up.

Heres their current fuel mix:

[http://www.hawaiianelectric.com/heco/Clean-Energy/Latest-
Cle...](http://www.hawaiianelectric.com/heco/Clean-Energy/Latest-Clean-Energy-
News/About-Our-Fuel-Mix?cpsextcurrchannel=1#5)

Scroll down to see to see Oil listed at >60%.

~~~
jellicle
Pretty harsh criticisms. You must be an expert. Ok, what electrical generation
capacity would you have built for Hawaii?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Distributed solar on roofs, offshore wind, and combined cycle natural gas for
peaking and base load until renewables complete their buildout.

~~~
rjsw
Hawaii could copy Iceland and add geothermal to solar and wind.

It has plenty of hills to build a bit of pumped hydro storage on too.

~~~
mchannon
Iceland has excellent Geothermal resources.

Hawaii, if you actually sit down and look at where the geothermal resources
are (big island and a tiny amount on Maui, not where 90+% of electricity is
used on Oahu), will force you to conclude that they couldn't copy Iceland and
are stuck with other renewables.

~~~
caf
The distance from the big island to Oahu appears to be feasible for an
underwater HVDC cable (eg
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basslink](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basslink)
). If the geothermal was cheap enough, this might be worthwhile.

~~~
grogenaut
370km, nice!

------
wyldfire
It seems inevitable that continued advances in PV will either destroy the
power utilities or force them to reinvent their business as electricity
brokers (focusing on distribution and/or storage).

Regulatory capture can slow this trend. But as the article indicates, it's
only temporary. Advances in energy storage and moderated consumption allows
customers to disengage from the grid entirely.

~~~
grecy
I feel like this is one good example of big changes coming to the world and
traditionally established big business in the next 5-10-25 years. Hilariously,
many of the following big business have "guaranteed profits" from the
Government, which is also going to have to change.

If you're in the business of making electricity by burning stuff, or you sell
oil, or cable TV, or internet, or 50 other good examples, you had better start
reinventing your business now.

Those business make very rich people richer, so they're going to fight it
tooth and nail, which is a shame when they could be putting that effort into
reinvention.

~~~
tsotha
>Hilariously, many of the following big business have "guaranteed profits"
from the Government, which is also going to have to change.

I doubt that will change. If you want companies to have enormous amounts of
idle capacity waiting around for a cloudy day then you have to make sure they
can make money.

~~~
grecy
We're not going to need that capacity anymore, so we don't need the companies
anymore.

i.e. when the massive majority of houses and business have their own solar and
storage, we don't need to pour billions into coal plants and the grid to have
it sitting around waiting for... nothing.

~~~
tsotha
I don't see how that will ever make sense. The only way you can guarantee your
house will have enough power is to overbuild the storage by quite a bit. It's
not worth the money.

~~~
grecy
When the majority of houses have a good amount of solar and storage, then the
grid we already have will be more than enough, therefore it can go into
"maintenance" mode. (likely even reduction, I suspect)

------
tzs
Isn't Hawaii a special case because of its isolation?

If so many people install solar in Southern California or Arizona that the
local utility has more power coming in during the day than it can use or
store, it can sell the excess via the national grid to someplace that can use
it.

As far as I've been able to determine from the internet, there is no
connection between Hawaii power grids and the mainland. In fact, it looks like
the grids of each island might be isolated from the others.

~~~
david2777
Exactly. None of the islands grids are connected. I worked for a power plant
on the big island a few years ago and even then there was a big issue with too
much power during the day and not enough at night. Coupling that with the
intermittent wind power and you have a very hard grid to maintain.

~~~
tsotha
Why _aren 't_ they connected? Is it just too expensive? Seems like it would be
a big advantage to do so.

~~~
McKayDavis
NextEra (the energy company that recently bought HECO) is looking to do just
this. A Sept. 2013 report by them estimates a capital cost of approximately
$600 million for a 200 MW cable connect between Maui and Oahu. (source page 8
of [1])

This is the low end of the scale with other estimates ranging from $553
Million to $1.24 Billion (page 9).

Note that this does not connect the Big Island to the grid either.

The preliminary proposed route can be seen on page 84 of the report.

[1]
[http://nexteraenergyhawaii.com/pdf/initial_comments.pdf](http://nexteraenergyhawaii.com/pdf/initial_comments.pdf)

------
Corrado
I think that a home battery product from Tesla might help with some of these
worries. If the rumors are true, Tesla want to take their existing car battery
technology and turn it into a wall mountable product. This would allow
homeowners to generate their own electricity during the day and use it at
night. I'm not saying that people will completely drop off of the grid (though
I'm sure some will) but it might be a way for the utility companies to manage
peak demand. There is possibly even a good small business idea in building
software to handle this type of thing.

------
transfire
The cost is still too high, so the electric companies have little to worry
about in the short run as long as they can find ways to improve their own
margins. Of course lobbying for regulatory fees and reduced buy-back rates is
one way to do that, but the utilities best be careful there. That could cause
a blow back reaction.

In the long run though it is all downhill. Battery tech is getting better at
around 8% per year. Solar efficiency isn't far behind. What cost $20,000 now
to add solar or $40,000 to get off-grid completely, will cost half that in
about 10 to 15 years. If the trend lines continue then in 20 to 30 years years
its a done deal. No house will ever be built again without it's own power
generation system.

~~~
bradleyjg
You can't get off the grid completely unless you are a) willing to suffer some
downtime occasionally, b) way overbuild storage as compared to typical needs,
or c) have your own backup fossil fuel generator.

Any way you cut it high availability costs money. If you expect the grid to
handle backup for you then you should expect to pay them to do so. TANSTAAFL

~~~
transfire
I don't think (a) is true because (b) and/or (c) is exactly what people will
eventually do --although in the case of (c) it will be hydrogen fuel cells.

~~~
darkmighty
It costs at least some $400/kWh for battery storage. That amounts to $12k
dollars for each house for supplying _average consumption_ ; that's a huge
cost already. If you want (a) to be false, I guess you need to multiply that
by two at least. It just doesn't make sense to make each house do it
individually, the grid is a wonderful technology that reduces this risks,
smooths consumption and provides storage/generation economies of scale. It
just doesn't make sense to abolish it entirely for all but the most isolated
places.

~~~
hellgas00
I pay about $150/mth on electricity ($1800/yr), if your numbers are to be
believed, then it would take about ~13.2 years to pay off a 24k battery pack,
this doesn't include the cost of the panels which would probably be another
24K, so roughly a 26 years to pay off (Probably the working life of the
panels) So basically at current prices the cost is on par with my utility.
It's not amazing, but with the right gov't incentives and future advancements
in battery and solar technology I don't see why we couldn't see renewables
edge out the dominant players. Sucks for me though, just finished my B.eng in
mechanical with specialization in thermal power generation.

~~~
reportingsjr
I was just discussing this with someone who installed solar panels on their
house about 8 months ago. I think your numbers are a little bit off.

We live in south western ohio and said person took their bill from $300-400/mo
to $30/mo (at 13 cents per kWh) with $11k of solar panels. They have a payoff
period of about 3 years not including the $4k rebate they got which reduces
the payoff cost to a little under 2 years.

Keep in mind this is a place that doesn't get nearly as much sun as much more
southern areas/Hawaii.

I do agree that batteries still have a payoff period that is too long to be
economical. Here's rooting for Mr. Musk.

------
tedsanders
I once worked at a utility studying this very issue.

The typical worries about solar are:

+Power intermittency (rapid, uncontrolled changes in power can push the
voltage and frequency outside acceptable levels. This reduces reliability and
can destroy electronics.)

+Voltage regulation (also, on a local level, PV can mess with voltage
compensators, pushing voltage outside of acceptable levels at the end of
voltage regulation zones)

+Morning power surplus (lots of solar power will drop the baseline demand from
~4AM to noon, reducing the amount of cheap baseline power you can run)

+Harmonics (crummy inverters can inject unwanted sine wave harmonics into the
grid, again bad for electronics)

+Fault current danger (if a tree takes down a power line, both sides can be
remain live if power is being pushed onto the grid by PV on both sides)

+Inverter tripping (the main way to fix the fault current problem is to
mandate that inverters passively follow the grid's voltage/frequency and then
disconnect if they detect problems. However, with high PV penetration this has
its own problem: a transient fluctuation can cause a domino chain reaction
where all the inverters turn off, taking the grid down with them.)

+Power factor/vars (one important function for the grid is to keep current and
voltage in phase, but today's PV inverters are dumb and blindly produce power
with a power factor of 1, which can mess with automatic capacitor banks meant
to help counteract the inductive load of the grid)

Now, some of these problems are more real than others, and many don't become
an issue until PV penetration reaches like 30%.

The good news is that these are all solvable problems. Energy storage or
additional natural gas peakers can fix the intermittency problem, and for the
other problems the grid can be redesigned to allow better two-way power flow
and inverters can be designed to produce higher quality power.

However, the bad news is that all of these fixes are expensive and all of them
take years. Furthermore, many utilities do not have the expertise or
confidence to make big changes to their grid and still guarantee reliable high
quality power. Utilities are known for being slow and risk-averse, but they
are risk-averse for a reason - blackouts are very costly to society.

Another issue for the utility is how to charge for power. Historically,
utilities have tried to keep things simple for residential customers by
charging only for power consumed. However, if residential PV becomes popular,
utilities will have no choice but to change their pricing model so that they
can be compensated for the non-kWh value they provide (e.g., reliability,
stability, option value, power quality regulation).

The bottom line is that the problems from high PV penetration are real.
Utilities are cautious, not evil, and they have good reasons to be. (Also, I
think it's ridiculous when people claim that PV will kill utilities - barring
a radical shift in technology/economics, wires and pooled power regulation and
economies of scale make a grid hugely valuable, even if power generation
becomes more distributed.)

That said, these are all solvable problems and I am hopeful and optimistic
about the long-term future of solar power.

~~~
brandmeyer
> However, the bad news is that all of these fixes are expensive and all of
> them take years

As a power electronics control engineer I strenuously disagree. The historical
problems with massive renewable penetration aren't just solvable, they are
well-solved already!

For example, grid-tied inverters and PFC rectifiers have been meeting IEEE-519
harmonics guidelines for many years already.

We even have virtual impedance methods which provide harmonic and reactive
_support_ for the grid available right now. The problem is that the utilities
have actively blocked their implementation!

The grid accepted an almost total transformation from nonlinear RCD computer
loads to PFC-corrected loads without difficulty at all, and there are far more
switching power supplies on the line than there are active inverters. So I
view the "problem" with unity power factor inverters as a red herring.

Anti-islanding has been in effect for many years already, which completely
eliminates the "felled tree leaves live wires" problem. Again, another non-
problem.

Consider very carefully what you get from the entrenched utilities, because
they are coming to the table with a tremendous amount of preexisting bias.

~~~
tedsanders
Great points, thanks.

I did not mean to imply that all of the typical worries were well-founded (as
you say, harmonics has been solved for years), but now I realize that's how my
comment read, so I apologize. My point was that there are factors other than
intermittency that historically have stopped utilities from enthusiastically
supporting residential solar.

Also, I wholeheartedly agree with you that the solutions to these problems
already exist. When I said they'd take years, I meant it would take years to
implement the solutions, not to invent them.

------
diafygi
I have a solar startup that specifically focuses on automating interaction
with utilities, and the excitement and ambition in the solar industry right
now is off the charts. There is an unbelievable amount of momentum in favor of
solar, and most solar companies see these problems as totally solvable. Hawaii
is seen as a microcosm for the way the rest of the U.S. will be in 10 years or
less.

Here's some of the things that solar has going for it:

1\. The Governor of California recently set a mandate to reach 50% renewables
by 2030[1]. We want to hit this target in ten years or less.

2\. The Department of Energy's Sunshot initiative is funding solar technology
and software development to drive the installed cost below $1 per watt by
2017[2]. So far, we are on track to hit these targets.

3\. Batteries are getting super cheap, which will turn solar into a non-
intermittent source and allow solar+storage to be just as cheap as grid
prices[3]. In fact, there is actually quite a bit of worry about grid
defection (we are starting to see this Hawaii)[4].

4\. Wall Street is funding solar projects at a massive rate[5]. The bottleneck
right now in solar is finding customers, not financiers.

5\. The federal subsidy for solar is expiring in 2017, but the industry is on
track to absorb the cost and continue to thrive without any subsidy[6]. This
will make us much harder to kill off politically.

6\. The advent of community solar will solve the renting problem, where
renters be able to buy pieces of a remote solar farm since they don't own
their roofs[7]. This opens up the solar market to serve the entire
electricity-using population, not just the building owners.

What will be hard:

Stranded assets. Solar is growing so quickly that it will soon be able to
replace the capacity of existing fossil-based generators that still have
lifespan[8]. Investors in those assets will see them stranded. This will start
with coal and natural gas plants over the next 10 years, but as batteries get
cheaper and electric cars get more prevalent solar will start stranding oil
assets[9].

This is where things get hard. Utilities are traditionally pretty bad
competing (since they usually don't have to), but oil companies are another
story. They are very used to ruthless competition and have a lot of experience
bribing their way into governments. We are expecting very heavy push back from
oil after 2025 because electric vehicles risk leaving already purchased oil in
the ground.

I, for one, can't wait until we fight that fight. It is the fight that our
generation will be remembered for.

P.S. The entire solar industry is hiring (including my startup).

[1]: [http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-renewable-
goal...](http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-renewable-
goals-20150108-story.html)

[2]:
[https://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/sunshot/pdfs/dpw_white_pa...](https://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/sunshot/pdfs/dpw_white_paper.pdf)

[3]: [http://rameznaam.com/2015/04/14/energy-storage-about-to-
get-...](http://rameznaam.com/2015/04/14/energy-storage-about-to-get-big-and-
cheap/)

[4]:
[http://www.rmi.org/electricity_grid_defection](http://www.rmi.org/electricity_grid_defection)

[5]: [http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/12/23/why-wall-
st...](http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/12/23/why-wall-street-is-
learning-to-love-solar-energy.aspx)

[6]: [https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/What-Happens-
Wh...](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/What-Happens-When-the-ITC-
Expires)

[7]: [https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Solar-Summit-
Sl...](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Solar-Summit-Slide-Show-
The-Evolution-of-Solar)

[8]: [http://www.utilitydive.com/news/jon-wellinghoff-utilities-
ar...](http://www.utilitydive.com/news/jon-wellinghoff-utilities-are-not-
driving-clean-energy-growth/292912/) Disclosure: Jon is one of our advisors.

[9]:
[http://theenergycollective.com/energydeborah/2216626/podcast...](http://theenergycollective.com/energydeborah/2216626/podcast-
energy-247-are-stranded-assets-oil-and-gas-myth-or-reality)

------
spenrose
An excellent overview of the scale at which we need to integrate renewables:

    
    
      http://www.vox.com/2015/4/15/8420297/fossil-fuels-race-renewables

------
rurabe
Is it really that hard to forecast the amount of power residential PV
generates? I'm pretty sure you could build a model that is pretty good just
based on weather data, but failing that why not just put a single small PV
panel on each (plant, substation, power pole... choose your level of
granularity) and have it report back the amount of solar energy in that
location? That should get you a very good idea of the amount of power coming
in.

------
w8rbt
What would happen if tens of millions of vehicles started feeding power grids
while sitting in parking lots. I think that could happen someday soon.

Edit: Bob Bruninga has written a bit about solar power in cars. Great content.
[http://www.aprs.org/APRS-SPHEV.html](http://www.aprs.org/APRS-SPHEV.html)

------
themgt
If the utilities drag their feet, their could be reasonably good
micro/neighborhood/apartment complex-level solutions - $100-250k of batteries
on a loan & small buy-in per-unit, and the batteries & smart-system can
optimize the buy/sell process around historical/current usage & prices &
storage levels.

------
fapjacks
HECO is the central and most prominent racket of all on those islands. Just
ask anybody living there.

------
ChuckMcM
It is an interesting conundrum. I'm looking forward to whole house inverters
with decent battery packs to take me completely off grid. At that point a
simple fuel cell tied to the gas line to top off the battery pack when low on
energy and you're good to go.

------
kpozin
Can anyone comment on the claim that private solar power generation affects
the stability of the grid? What kinds of infrastructure changes would be
needed to properly support power generation in private homes?

~~~
brandmeyer
There is a disconnect between market forces in energy production right now.

Right now, short-term grid frequency and voltage stability (periods of seconds
to a few min) is regulated automatically by the governor response of the
various generators on the grid. These governors bid in advance to set their
proportional gain for frequency stability. Basically, they promise to
autonomously raise or lower their throttle in the future based on the observed
grid frequency and voltage, and get paid later when they make good on their
promise. Long-term stability (periods of 15 min or so) are regulated with
market action in the spot market for power. Very long term stability is
regulated by markets that clear 24 hours in advance of their estimated
delivery.

However, some energy producers effectively have flat rate contracts that don't
participate directly in grid stability. Wind and nuclear will negotiate a
fixed power-purchase agreement (typical prices are about 50 USD/MW-hr or so in
the US) that will be fixed for years at a time. Likewise, residential solar
customers sell back their power under the same, basically fixed rate schedule
that they use to buy power.

So, as the penetration of fixed-rate power increases into the market, the
pricing volatility continues to increase as well. There are technologies that
can help. In fact, it is trivially easy to get a grid-tied inverter to be
sensitive to grid changes with controls that model virtual inertia, impedance,
throttle, and so on. This is part of what I do as a controls engineer. The
difficulty isn't in implementing such controls, it is in adjusting the markets
such that all of the existing players are comfortable with the result.

Witness this in Hawaii - the retail price of power is so high that it makes
obvious good sense to install your own generation. But instead of adjusting
the rates to reflect the new availability of supply, the incumbent utility
seeks to raise barriers to competition instead.

~~~
jessaustin
_...the retail price of power is so high that it makes obvious good sense to
install your own generation. But instead of adjusting the rates to reflect the
new availability of supply, the incumbent utility seeks to raise barriers to
competition instead._

Incumbents elsewhere might find themselves in similar situations. If they
react the same way, enough localized generation and storage will appear that
they will find their business unworkable at any rate level.

------
vishaldpatel
Pretty awesome. The energy companies would turn from energy producers to
energy storage and distribution. Really exciting indeed! =)

~~~
tsotha
The root of the problem here is storage is more expensive than production.

------
mark212
anybody else confused about why a guy who lives in Hawaii, one of the most
temperate climates in the populated world, is spending $700 per month in
electricity?

serious question for Hawaiians: do people run the a/c round the clock there?
Or is it something else?

~~~
damoe
I live on the big island and pay over $.40/KWH so a $700 bill would be more
like $200 on the mainland.

That is one reason why my new house is off grid solar - cheap (compared to
$.40/KWH), clean electricity.

The other is that the grid here is unreliable. I had 87 outage events last
year for a total of 37 hours and that is not including the nine days with out
power post hurricane.

Now don't get me started on internet quality!!!

