PUC Chair Iwase says NextEra decision out this week
KAT WADE / FEB. 2016
Public Utilities Commission Chairman Randy Iwase said today he is hopeful the commission will announce a decision on NextEra Energy Inc.’s $4.3 billion proposed purchase of Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. this week.
Public Utilities Commission Chairman Randy Iwase said today he is hopeful the commission will announce a decision on NextEra Energy Inc.’s $4.3 billion proposed purchase of Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. this week.
“We’re really trying to get it out this week. I’ll see if we can,” Iwase said in a telephone interview.
Iwase said in May he expected a decision by the end of June. In late June, he said he expected a decision in the first week of July. PUC approval is needed for the sale to move ahead.
In June, just days before the PUC was expected to issue a decision, Gov. David Ige appointed Tom Gorak, chief counsel to the PUC, to take the place of outgoing Commissioner Michael Champley as one of three commissioners at the PUC.
Ige, who is opposed of the sale of HEI to NextEra, said he was appointing Gorak because he wanted someone whose ideas more closely aligned with his own. Champley and the third commissioner, Lorraine Akiba, were appointed by former Gov. Neil Abercrombie. Iwase was appointed by Ige. So Ige’s appointees are now in the majority.
30 responses to “PUC Chair Iwase says NextEra decision out this week”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
deck is stacked now that champley is out..
So his term expired!
Do you really think the PUC will decide this matter? Do you really think Nextera would bet 100+ million on their ability to obtain PUC approval? How naive.
In Hawaii all state boards and commissions exist for one purpose only, to deflect criticism away from the real decision makers.If Ige was really going to kill this deal, he would have done so already.
he just did
What insiders own HEI stock?
If not NextEra then who? The underlying problems will still remain. HEI has done little over the years to build and maintain Hawaii’s electrical infrastructure. Now it will take $B’s and there’s not enough money. Now what???
Maybe us, if we can spend billions on a train. Why not billions on an electric company?
Because it’s ridiculous. HEI had responsibility to upgrade the system but apparently instead took the money for excessive management costs, dividends, and other profits.
agree
If it costs billions, us rate payers have to come up with the money, while people with solar want to escape responsibility.
Thank our lucky stars Ige will be thrown out after one term!! Governor Ige will go down as worse than Abercrombie, the 2 most anti-business governors Hawaii has ever elected !!! Anyone want to guess where our hotel, telecomm, military, shipping, retail, & construction industries obtained the bulk of their financing ?? Clue – it was not in Hawaii Nei !! Governor Ige resembles Governor Moonbeam Brown of California with his unrealistic, pie in the sky, but most of all, incredibly expensive ideas on self sustainment !!!
Who is going to run against him? Duke Aiona?
i’ll still vote for none of the above
and by the way is i was getting paid by the hour?
cause man he sure is milking this to da max
I take it you’re a NextEra backer. Problem with NextEra is they never fully disclosed a lot of information that the PUC was asking for. There were no assurances in writing that NextEra was going to save money for the people of Hawaii. If they had been more forthcoming, they might have had a better chance. Do problems still exists? Of course. HECO has made it very difficult for energy savings programs like PV. We need to clean house at HECO and get people in who are better aligned to using alternate sources of energy.
HECO is a private company.
There’s a good chance that Waokanaka has HEI stock or works for Nextera.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that NextEra’s proposals are largely lies.
Remember, most of their power comes from natural gas and nuclear in the South East, their primary market and that they can reduce overhead per kilowatt by running plants 24/7 selling to national grids. None of that is replicable here. Their entire cost saving model effectively falls apart when one examines the assets that generate the power at a lower cost. I’ve pointed this out for literally months and not a single NextEra backer has even attempted to address those points.
What is more telling is that virtually all of the NextEra backers at the hearings were reading the same script where the detractors all had different reasons. Meaning that NextEra effectively told people what to say.
HEI has problems, but we don’t need the lies that NextEra is selling.
We should have nuclear, but the people in Hawaii can’t accept that. Liquified gas os an option , but the Governor opposes. He wants to be the only 100% alternative energy State on an unrealistic timetable.
A single PBR with existing solar would service Oahu well. But we will never get nuclear like you said Justmyview371. Despite the fact that we have nuclear reactors in the submarines and carriers that pull into port.
As for natural gas, I can somewhat understand Ige’s view, but I don’t have a problem converting a plant over. The other issue is if we expand natural gas usage, we do need to build an actual import plant over the current docking terminal out in Ewa. That will cost money.
I’m still partial to just building as much solar as possible to run a electrolysis plant to split water for hydrogen. That way we could be 100% self sufficient in grid production and possibly even export hydrogen.
agree..heco has been badly managed and governed for years
No way! Abercrombie was a prostitute. Ige is holding out for the people.
I agree Ige likes to spend money on environmental causes, school kids, etc.
NeztEra is clearly wrong for Hawaii. Their plan was to just take the people here to the cleaners. HECO needs to be converted to a publicly owned utility like Kauai.
Agree but not necessarily like Kauai.
Right. Kauai has cheap electricity. No way. A municipal or state run utility? Think rail but worse. Nat gas could cut rates. Lower polution than coal fired AES plant. Less expensive than floating wind farm miles off shore so as to be out of sight.
There is a reason that Hawaii ranked 49th in CNBC BEST STATES TO DO BUSINESS 2016 released today. Would have been 50th but ranked 1 in in one category where Rhode Island (50th) really sucked.
HEI reminds me of the city and state ignoring infrastructure upgrades and poor long term planning. No electricity for rail or the 20 plus condos being built in Kaakaako and the several 1000. Homes planned for EwA.
in the long-term, if the merge is nixed, it will be bad for the consumers. HEI is being badly managed now and will get worse. ige is wrong on this one, and his conspiracy to influence the decision will come back to bite him.
When has Heco not gotten what they want from the PUC? This deal was approved before Connie even announced it to the public. Just watch!
Why is this bad for consumers?
Tell me how Nextera’s business plan of reducing costs, which revolves around nuclear, natural gas, running plants 24/7 to sell to other grids can be replicated here.
I’ve yet to see a Nextera backer explain that way. Maybe you will be the first?
And the first lawsuit will be filed next week costing us taxpayers. Thanks Ige. Why didn’t you let the legal commissioner vote.
Why is it taking so much time?? If they have a majority saying “NO” then get it over with. Just imagine if the utility was publicly owned and it takes this much time to make a decision???
When “big” money is on the table I can only imagine people are being influenced by either, HECO or NextExtra. aka-BRIBE$.