Even given the somewhat unusual circumstances faced by an island state trying to manage its electricity needs, Kauai stands alone.

Most of the rest of Hawaii is served by investor-owned utilities owned by a common parent company, Hawaiian Electric Co. In a difficult climate of rising fuel prices, debate swirls around the best way to juggle the demands for reliable service and lower monthly bills, and on whether a new model for delivering the goods is needed.

And then there’s Kauai. Like HECO and its sibling companies, it controls power generation and distribution. But its distinction is its ownership model. Ten years ago, the island belatedly joined the nation’s network of electricity cooperatives.

Of the roughly 900 power utility co-ops nationwide, many of them were established in the 1930s and ’40s to bring electricity to rural communities largely ignored by investor-owned electric companies. They still benefit from low-interest loans from the federal government to offset the cost of installing a power grid to small populations, even though in many co-op jurisdictions, suburbs and even cities have grown up in the meantime.

Few are quite like the Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative, which is a "unified" utility, managing all the power functions. More commonly on the mainland, one co-op may handle the generation and transmission, selling the power wholesale to separate member distribution cooperatives, covering a wide area. On the small Garden Island, said David Bissell, KIUC president and chief executive officer, it made sense to have an all-in-one.

It’s also distinguished by its focus on aggressively expanding its renewable energy portfolio: 50 percent green energy by 2023 is the goal.

"Hawaii is probably the only place in the country where renewables can come in and actually lower the cost of energy," said Bissell, who was chief financial officer for five years before taking the top post nearly a year ago.

Bissell began his career in the cooperative model with Hoosier Energy in Indiana, also working as manager of financial forecasting and reporting for Cinergy Corp., which is now part of the multi-state power company Duke Energy. The co-op model, he said, appeals to him.

"I like that the members control the utility, not shareholders," he said. Members have to formally join the co-operative — the law requires a nominal fee, Bissell said, so they pay a penny — but virtually all the customers on Kauai are members.

Like all co-ops, KIUC is nonprofit, which means all the money stays within the concern and does not funnel out to shareholders. Unfortunately, that by itself has not yet brought the members what they sought: relief from their highest-in-the-state electric bills.

That’s because, like the rest of the state, Kauai electrical generation is largely dependent on oil and, in a big disappointment to the members, world oil prices started taking off about at the same time the co-op was born.

That was the inducement for the cooperative governors — its elected board of directors — to approve the strategic plan for a shift to renewables, in the hope that this would help stabilize rates over the long term. The ability to take a long view, primarily because there is less worry about meeting the investors shorter-term earnings goals, is one of the advantages of this ratepayer-owned model, Bissell said.

Another is access to the low-interest capital the federal government provides through the Rural Utility Service, he said.

Wind power has less currency as an option because of community concern over the endangerment to seabird populations, especially shearwaters, Bissell said. But the desire to capitalize on favorable financial conditions is what’s driving the plans for various renewable projects, in solar, hydroelectric, biomass and biofuels.

"We have a huge sense of urgency to get them built while the interest rates are low," he said, while also acknowledging the complication: the difficulty of building a popular consensus toward such big changes.

"On the governance side, a co-op is a representative democracy," Bissell said. "The primary involvement is electing a board of directors, so member participation is important. You get to vote for a director, all our board meetings are open, our members and any resident of Kauai can come to the meetings and get to interact with the decision."

The board has nine directors, each elected to staggered three-year terms. That means every year is an election year for a third of the board, and candidate forums for the 2012 vote are under way.

This year’s most contentious issue may be the utility’s program of converting to "smart" metering. Bissell sent out an "open letter to KIUC members" on Wednesday, trying to explain the system to residents, some of whom have complained that KIUC is not showing concern about issues raised in various legal battles being waged in other states.

One California lawsuit charged that the meters, which emit radio frequency radiation, can be harmful to health. The utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., has blinked, asking that state’s public utilities commission to authorize an opt-out clause before proceeding with the metering installation.

In the letter, Bissell cited the benefits of the meters, including that members will be able to reduce their usage by getting better feedback about the energy drain of specific appliances and activities, and that they will get much faster response time in the event of outages.

On the health concerns, he wrote, "KIUC considers the new meters to be completely safe," pointing to studies showing no harmful effects from RF exposure produced by the devices.

Another source of community protest has been its plans for hydroelectric power expansion of the small network of hydro plants that the utility inherited as a legacy of the sugar plantations. Bissell said the directors voted to follow a federal permitting process to secure preliminary approvals in its bid to at least triple the current 5- to 7-megawatt production.

But any project that involves diverting streamflow is controversial on an island where agriculture has such history, he acknowledged, and he said the board is now inclined to go through the stringent review process mandated by the state water code.

Bissell takes a philosophic view of this kind of community conflict: Democracy can be messy. The members are given "patronage capital" payouts when the utility hits its revenue targets. These are proportional to the level of usage, he said, so the larger business customers of a cooperative still have the largest stake, and perhaps the loudest voice.

But even the smallest customer still has far better access to decisionmakers than in a conventional utility.

"You get a vote and a say, and all the causes aren’t going to be pleased by everything we do," he said. "Kauai is very activist-oriented."

State Rep. Derek Kawakami sits on the House Energy and Environmental Protection Committee, but his interest in the cooperative is personal, too. He represent’s Kauai’s 14th District and is a KIUC member, and has been in a position to hear some of the complaints. The utility leaders could do a better job of messaging, he said.

"Our co-op model can work, but it has to be based on a foundation of good, clear communication," Kawakami said. "That’s what people want and are demanding.

"Trust can be an issue, and once you break that, it can take a long time to repair."

Stu Burley is one of the directors up for re-election to a second term. He formerly oversaw environmental processes for projects at the Pacific Missile Range before his retirement, and community engagement was sometimes combative there, too. It prepared him for the stormy seas the KIUC board sometimes encounters now.

Burley said, though, that he was somewhat startled by the feedback at one of the candidate forums last week, people complaining that they hadn’t been told about the smart metering.

"The board voted yes in 2010," he said. "What surprises me is that people aren’t listening. But you’ll always get that, and now we’re going to move forward.

Henry Curtis, whose environmental organization Life of the Land takes a deep interest in energy issues, has been watching the cooperative. It’s meant to be democratic, he said, but getting on the board requires that a candidate round up about 3,000 votes, a high bar for the average member.

"There’s a tendency for the established political power base to also be on the board," he added.

That said, all but the most jaundiced observers believe that the somewhat limited influence members have is better than the alternative.

"The other option is to go back to being an independently owned utility," Kawakami said, "and there you have no voice."