Review staff and duties of PUC

When the state made its commitment to go green in 2008, it did so without fulfilling part of the pledge: ensuring Hawaii has the regulatory capacity to do the job.

Hawaii is among the most aggressive states in terms of its goals for reducing its reliance on oil for its energy production. The penetration of photovoltaic systems as generators contributing to the power grid is especially notable in Hawaii, which ranks second among states for the highest level of PV production on a per-capita basis.

And that’s where the mismatch between the mission and the means is most apparent. Finding a way to narrow that gap, both by boosting resources and reorganizing to reduce workload, should be a high-priority task for lawmakers in the coming year.

The reason for the crisis — that the state Public Utilities Commission has only 40 staffers when it is authorized for 65 — is plain enough. Despite the full-court press in pursuit of clean-energy goals, Hawaii ranks ninth for the size of its PUC staff. Exactly how many people are needed is an open question, one the Legislature should broach in January, but both the budget and the staffing should be adjusted to meet the workload.

This means reducing the backlog in the dockets, the regulatory decisions the panel of three commissioners are weighing. In the electricity category alone, the PUC has 72 open dockets, including the contentious action plans proposed by Hawaiian Electric Co.

If the PUC is to continue effectively pushing the HECO transition to an entity that focuses on distributing energy rather than producing it — one more accommodating of solar energy — it will need more staff with the expertise to prod that transition.

The PUC pressure includes its rejection of HECO plans in recent months, finding them falling short of demands for structural changes at the utility. But the public itself is doing its own pushing, and the utility seems to be moving in response.

HECO has announced a plan to clear all the applications from PV customers wanting to connect new systems to the grid by the end of 2015. More than 4,800 customers were on the waiting list. The systems must use equipment, some of which is being tested now, to prevent hazardous voltage spikes.

The move toward a solution is good news, but the PUC must make sure that HECO retains that same level of resolve to accommodate solar energy beyond 2015.

On the other side of the equation, lawmakers and the commission will need to consider strategies for improving efficiency.

That’s a proposition under review in other states as well. Increasingly, experts have said, utility regulators are looking at moving away from the labor-intensive mission of approving rate increases one by one.

Ron Binz, a former chief of the utilities commission in Colorado, was brought in by the nonprofit advocacy group Blue Planet Foundation to address the PUC on possible reforms. According to PUC records, Binz said Britain is pioneering a more incentive-driven scheme. Commissioners would lay out a five-year rate schedule, with clear expectations and incentives for keeping costs within bounds, he said.

This idea warants further discussion, along with other proposals aimed at producing a more efficient utility regulator. For example, past bills that proposed thinning out the PUC job list should be reviewed again — perhaps partially deregulating elements such as commercial bus transport, cargo services and telcom, transferring those to the supervision of the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.

In some ways, Hawaii has enviable policy advantages in the drive for a more sustainable energy future. It has the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, with a firm goal of reducing its fossil-fuel dependence 70 percent by 2030, both by producing more renewable energy and by conservation.

Clean energy, Binz told the Star-Advertiser, "is pretty much at an advanced stage in Hawaii where other states are just talking about a possibility."

It would be unfortunate if the state squandered that momentum by letting the PUC bog down in overwrought procedures, and because of understaffing and underfunding. That must be corrected, if Hawaii is to stay on task with clean-energy development.