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HECO gets 26% of its power from renewable sources

Kathryn Mykleseth
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STAR-ADVERTISER

Hawaiian Electric Co. said today it is a quarter of the way to the state’s goal of the utility’s electricity coming 100 percent from renewable energy resources by 2045.

Hawaiian Electric Co. said today 25.8 percent of its electricity generated is coming from renewable energy resources, up from 23.2 percent in 2015.

The state’s dominate electric utility submitted an update to the state Public Utilities Commission on Tuesday showing its progress in meeting the state’s goal to have 100 percent of the utility’s electricity coming from renewable energy resources by 2045.

The utility is ahead of schedule, as it is roughly four percentage points from the state’s requirement to have 30 percent of the utility’s electricity coming from renewable energy resources by the end of 2020. HECO beat the 2015 benchmark, which mandated 15 percent of its electricity from renewables.

At the end of 2016, about 54 percent of electricity used by customers on the Big Island was coming from renewables, up from 49 percent in 2015. In Maui County, 37 percent of the electricity customers used came from renewables, up from 35 percent in 2015. On Oahu, 19 percent of electricity used by customers in 2016 came from renewable resources, up from 17 percent the year before.

Across the five islands in HECO’s service areas the renewable resources feeding into the electric grids include customer-sited rooftop solar system, wind, utility-scale solar systems, geothermal, biomass, biofuels and hydroelectricity.

By 2020, HECO expects renewable energy sources will make up 48 percent of the power mix.

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