A new advocacy group has drafted a petition calling on Gov. David Ige to look into restructuring Hawaiian Electric Co. into a publicly owned utility.
Keep our Utilities Locally Owned and Locally Operated, an organization that includes the Sierra Club and The Alliance for Solar Choice, has drawn up a petition that asks the governor to conduct a study to see what the best utility model is for the state.
"Public ownership of Hawaii’s utilities should be on the table as we move forward with our clean energy future. We think this best serves the public interest. We’re tired of big, monopolistic corporations that focus only on their profits," KULOLO said on the group’s website.
Maui County and Hawaii island have both shown interest in breaking away from the current electric utility model. The Maui Mayor’s Office of Economic Development filed a request for proposals Tuesday seeking the costs and benefits associated with public power and energy cooperatives’ forms of electric utility ownership. A group on Hawaii island said in February it is considering turning Hawaii Electric Light Co. into a cooperative.
The steps toward energy independence on Maui and Hawaii island were prompted by the potential sale of Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. — parent company of Maui Electric Co., HELCO and HECO on Oahu — to Florida-based NextEra Energy Inc. for $4.3 billion. HEI is owned by its shareholders, as is NextEra.
Because of the different groups that have shown interest in changing the utility business model, TASC spokesman Robert Harris said he believes KULOLO will be able to gain more support for the petition.
"The fact that this is coming in many different forms — the idea has resonance and the people will be very supportive," Harris said.
KULOLO’s petition said publicly owned utilities have proved to charge lower rates and better serve the people.
"Fundamentally it really is in the public interest, it is not necessarily a solar-specific concept," Harris said. "As we move more into the decentralized world, perhaps the utility 2.0 is a public-owned one."
Harris said TASC has reached out to Kauai Island Utility Cooperative and the mayor of Maui to join the group.
"We’ve had the Sierra Club of Oahu sign on, and we’ve reached out to a number of other groups," Harris said. "A lot of people are thinking that the public-ownership model should be put on the table."
