Lots more light needed to see Hawaii’s energy future

Sometimes there is a failure to communicate, and sometimes just no one is listening.

As the $4.3 billion proposed purchase of Hawaiian Electric by Florida-based NextEra Energy chugs along, there is a feeling that the power company and the regulators are moving on separate tracks.

Recent comments by Gov. David Ige and the huge mainland power company show that neither is listening to the other.

Last week, in an exclusive hour-long interview with Kathryn Mykleseth, Honolulu Star-Advertiser energy reporter, Ige outlined what he wanted from a power company and how NextEra didn’t fit that model.

"We are looking for a partner in the electric utility that really embraces 100 percent renewable and, I think, more importantly, changing the business model from the traditional electric utility to what would work in a fully distributed generation renewable future," said Ige.

Distributed generation means that the power comes from lots of tiny power sources, such as the solar panels on your roof and the windmills in Kahuku. Making electrons from burning oil to spin turbines and then selling it to you over power lines owned by the electric company is not distributed energy, and it is not what Ige wants.

The governor, in a proclamation as bold as his announcement that he didn’t want any local power company to run on liquefied natural gas, said Hawaii should be "the renewable capital of the world."

The NextEra side of the debate is that distributed energy must equal a sustainable business model, said Eric Gleason, president of NextEra Hawaii, during a meeting with the Star-Advertiser last week.

Gleason argued that having the power company run a big solar generation plant with acres of solar panels is much more efficient than having everyone put solar on their roofs.

Rooftop solar is not going to get Hawaii to 100 percent renewable energy under any calculation, Gleason said.

And the former Army Ranger and Harvard Business School grad promised that even though "renewable energy is not a no-brainer," within a year of getting merger approval from the state Public Utilities Commission, NextEra would file a formal plan to get Hawaii to 100 percent renewable power.

The obvious catch is that NextEra doesn’t want power generation to become a cottage industry with thousands of happy villagers churning their own electricity; it wants to sell you the juice it made.

All that makes it obvious that another plan would come up. It was provided last week by a remarkable bipartisan coalition of political leaders calling for both decentralization and perhaps public ownership of the power company.

The group was loosely put together by state Rep. Chris Lee, chairman of the House Energy Committee, and includes more than 40 state legislators and county officials, including three of the four County Council chairmen.

"Until NextEra provides a framework for customer savings, it would be irresponsible not to explore options like co-ops and other alternatives," said GOP House Leader Rep. Beth Fukumoto-Chang. And Ernie Martin, Honolulu Council chairman, added, "now is the time for us to explore public ownership as an option."

The takeaway is that right now, neither Hawaiian Electric nor NextEra are turning on any lights with any public leaders — not in the Governor’s Office and not on Maui, Kauai or Hawaii island.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.