In Hawaii, at present, over 12 percent of the houses are equipped with solar panels—so many that on certain sunny days these home solar systems produce more electricity than the state needs.In the summer of 2015, Hawaii’s utility began refusing further connections by home solar owners to the grid. Not because they are mean-spirited, but because they can’t use it all, and excess power on the grid causes bits of it to shut down self-protectively—a measure that spares the infrastructure but blacks out its users. The same was happening in Vermont, which is saying something, because Hawaii might
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