Dozens of bills relating to energy were introduced to the state Legislature this session, and while the goals were broad and elected officials see the aims as noble, none will bring immediate relief to state residents struggling to pay some
Dozens of bills relating to energy were introduced to the state Legislature this session, and while the goals were broad and elected officials see the aims as noble, none will bring immediate relief to state residents struggling to pay some of the highest electricity bills in the country.
One of the most controversial is Senate Bill 2785, which would create a mechanism for the Public Utilities Commission to regulate an interisland, undersea power transmission cable. The bill doesn’t actually call for such a system to be built, noted Sen. Mike Gabbard, D-Waikele, Ko Olina. It does open the door for companies considering building such a system.
The bill was part of Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s legislative package. Senate President Shan Tsutsui, D-Wailuku, Kahului, introduced the measure at the governor’s request. Gabbard, the chairman of the Senate’s Energy and Environment Committee, said it’s a controversial proposal, not just because of environmental concerns relating to transmission cables connecting the islands. Many of the concerns he heard at public meetings, he said, were worries about potential renewable energy projects, such as Big Wind on Lanai and Molokai.
Worrying about such projects may be putting the cart before the horse. The places where large-scale renewable energy is most feasible — the neighbor islands, with rural areas to develop such energy sources — are the places where electricity demand is already being met by the existing utilities. Oahu is where the state has the most people and most energy demand. An interisland cable, possibly with a hub on Maui, could get the energy to Oahu.
Realistically, that’s going to take years. And it’s not going to bring down energy prices quickly, if at all, Gabbard said.
Sen. Rosalyn Baker, D-South Maui, West Maui, chairwoman of the Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee, said she doesn’t see an immediate benefit, either.
“In the short term, I don’t think so,” she said. “If we had the go-ahead right now, it could be five years” to even get the cables in place.
People talking about renewable energy like to point out that Hawaii could be in a renewable-powered position already if action had happened five or 10 years ago. The state had serious talks and papers published on geothermal 30 to 40 years ago. Hawaii, though, remains dependent on fossil-fuel powered energy.
What could help bring down some electricity costs, Gabbard said, is on-bill financing, which would allow homeowners to install solar power systems on their homes, then use their electricity savings to pay for the installation. In his Oahu district, he has constituents paying just $18 monthly electric bills, five houses down from constituents paying $400 a month.
But to realize those savings, homeowners have to be able to install those photovoltaic systems. That’s something Hawaii Electric Light Co. has made difficult, forcing some Big Island residents to have called on their elected officials to intervene, if not with legislation, at least with phone calls.
“Our rates have been going up substantially, and our bills were going up more and more,” Kohala Ranch resident Peter Eising said.
So he decided to install a photovoltaic system for his home. When he told HELCO he was ready to do so, officials there told him he needed to do a costly interconnection requirement study. The study, which he was told could cost into the tens of thousands of dollars, was needed to see if the section of the grid into which he’d been connecting already had at least 15 percent of its energy coming from such solar tie-ins. HELCO capped photovoltaic tie-ins at 15 percent.
The process was fairly extensive and, until Sen. Josh Green intervened on Eising’s and his neighbors’ behalf, they got little feedback from HELCO, and no encouragement to go solar, despite the state’s stated renewable energy goals. Even Mayor Billy Kenoi has said Hawaii Island should be 100 percent renewable-energy powered by 2015.
“This should be a simpler effort,” Eising said. “You’re doing something that we really all should be trying to do. It was worth it, but it was more time consuming than it should be. And more costly than it should be.”
Gabbard questioned HELCO’s 15 percent cap. The figure, he said, was based on some mainland communities’ restrictions. He said he knew of some locations, including areas of Kauai’s grid, where 100 percent of the grid had solar tie-ins, and were working just fine.
The undersea cable bill isn’t the only measure making progress in the Legislature this session. Rep. Denny Coffman, D-Honokohau, Kailua-Kona, Keauhou, is tracking about 20 measures, many of which he introduced. Senate Bill 3003 would differentiate between geothermal development and geothermal exploration, streamlining the permitting process for the latter.
The bill also gets rid of geothermal subzones.
“That allows for geothermal development on all lands,” Coffman said.
While the public may ultimately reap some benefit from the measures, certainly geothermal development companies will, too, if they’re able to create working geothermal plants, Coffman said.
Another Senate bill still moving would ask the state to promote the development of geothermal resources on public trust land.
Not all of Coffman’s energy bills gained traction this session. Companion House and Senate bills that attempted to reorganize Hawaii Electric Industries, by separating power generation and power distribution, failed.
