Why a battery is structural here, not optional
New rooftop projects join Smart Renewable Energy on either the Export track, which provides export bill credits, or the Non-Export track, which does not permit export to the grid at all.
On the Non-Export track, production beyond what your household is using at that moment has exactly two destinations: a battery, or nowhere. There is no credit accumulating in the background to be settled later.
Even on the Export track, a kilowatt hour consumed by your own household displaces electricity you would have bought at the full Oahu residential rate, which averaged 40.54 cents per kWh in 2025. Export compensation does not match that.
So in Kailua the storage question is not whether a battery improves the system, it is how much storage the system needs in order to deliver the savings the quote is promising. Ask your installer to show production, consumption and storage on the same daily chart rather than as annual totals.
What BYOD+ pays and what it asks in return
Bring Your Own Device Plus pays an upfront incentive of $400 per kW of committed battery capacity with no maximum cap, and low and moderate income participants receive an additional $400 per kW, doubling the figure.
In exchange you commit to five years of participation and select a two-hour window each day, for the whole participation period, during which the battery exports to the grid. Your household needs are served first and the excess is exported.
The minimum committed capacity is 1 kW, and the programme requires a battery paired with renewable generation. Customers cannot transition from the previous Battery Bonus programme into BYOD+, so a new battery is required to participate.
Early termination requires prorated repayment of the upfront incentive following 60 days written notice. That is not a reason to avoid the programme, but it does mean the five-year commitment is a real one, and it is worth weighing against how long you expect to be in the house.
Choosing the two-hour window
The daily export window is a customer selection rather than something assigned to you, and it is fixed for the participation period. That makes it a decision with five years behind it.
The window is when the battery discharges to the grid, after your own household demand is met. Choosing a window that overlaps your own heaviest evening usage means the battery is being asked to do two jobs at once.
Ask your installer to look at your actual consumption pattern before the window is selected, rather than defaulting to whatever is typical. A household that cooks late and a household that is out until nine in the evening do not have the same right answer.
Ask also what happens on a day when the battery is low. Understanding whether a shortfall in the window carries a consequence is the sort of question that is easy to ask before enrolment and awkward to raise afterwards.
Costing it out at Hawaii electricity prices
The 30 percent federal Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, so a cash or loan purchase in Kailua receives no federal tax credit on either the panels or the battery. Section 48E survives at 30 percent for third-party owners under leases and power purchase agreements.
The state RETITC under HRS Section 235-12.5 remains at 35 percent of actual cost capped at $5,000 per system, with a residential system defined as 5 kW of total output capacity, so ask how many systems your installation comprises.
BYOD+ pays $400 per kW of committed battery capacity with no maximum cap, doubled for low and moderate income households, against the five-year commitment and daily window described above.
Then add the Oahu residential average of 40.54 cents per kWh in 2025, which is the largest term in the calculation. Ask any installer to show the projection with the BYOD+ payment as its own line rather than folded into a single savings number.