Earth Day status report: The push toward renewable energy usage in Hawaii

Sunshine, warm breezes, clear waters, fiery volcanoes and scenic landscapes make Hawaii not only a picture-perfect postcard for visitors but also an idyllic home for more than a million residents.

On Earth Day, April 22, when we celebrate all that’s good about our environment, we are reminded that these same natural elements are also the keys to a more sustainable future, one with less imported oil and more clean energy from local resources.

But living in paradise also makes us vulnerable to potential pitfalls as we navigate toward a future free of fossil fuel dependence. Remember the "fiscal cliff"? In Hawaii, we are rapidly approaching the "energy cliff."

What is the "energy cliff"? It’s $1.5 billion in ratepayer savings and other green benefits that are just within reach but are on the verge of slipping away.

At the end of 2016, federal solar tax credits will expire and the financial incentive for many solar projects in Hawaii will be lost — potentially forever, given the deadlock in Washington, D.C.

We understand the challenges that Hawaiian Electric Co. is facing in integrating renewable energy resources on the grid. Assuring a safe and reliable grid is important; integrating increasing amounts of distributed generation is a challenge. We also understand that the Public Utilities Commission faces staffing shortages and fiscal constraints while working on the busiest docket schedule in history. These are serious issues that commissioners, lawmakers and government officials are already tackling.

But caught up in these clean energy growing pains is a future of energy independence for Hawaii that may be gone if things don’t get moving soon.

What’s at stake?

Take, for example, the 240 megawatts of renewable energy being proposed in nine utility-scale solar energy projects for which HECO is seeking PUC approval. These "waiver" projects have the potential to save Hono-lulu residents more than $1.5 billion over 30 years, reduce the use of more than a half-million barrels of oil a year and avoid more than 200,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year.

For these nine projects, the price at which HECO purchases power would be lowered to less than 16 cents per kilowatt-hour, far below what it costs HECO to generate power using fossil fuels. These projects, and other utility-scale renewable projects, help all Oahu electricity customers — yet getting them through the process has been slow and frustrating.

There are thorny issues to resolve — distributed generation penetration, overloaded residential circuits and potential curtailment of utility-scale solar. But given what’s at stake, isn’t it worth getting creative and trying to find the right balance of cost, reliability and decreasing the state’s reliance on oil? Given the scale of the savings — $1.5 billion — we certainly do.

Also at stake are individual residents frustrated with waiting to connect their home photovoltaic panels to the electrical grid. We, like they, want quicker action.

The good news is that Hawaii residents are embracing renewables — Honolulu is already the nation’s leading "solar city" on a per-capita basis and 96 percent of Hawaii voters polled support solar energy. HECO also says that 18 percent of electricity used by customers in 2013 came from renewable sources. As a result, green jobs and economic growth are being spurred.

The bad news is that Hawaii is still overly dependent on imported fossil fuels. In 2012, Hawaii imported approximately 45 million barrels of petroleum fuels.

Let’s move forward. We ask the Abercrombie administration and the Legislature to continue to partner with us to keep cleaner, cheaper power as the target for Hawaii’s future. We offer to work together with HECO, the PUC, our government officials and the public to come up with creative ways to make this happen. Let’s embrace as much renewables as possible and avoid driving over the energy cliff and losing $1.5 billion for the consumers of Hawaii.