Hawaiian Electric said it will not disconnect customers with past due accounts immediately after May 31, but urges them to act now to set up a payment plan.

The state Public Utilities Commission has set the date for disconnection moratoriums for all regulated utilities to end next Monday, after more than a year in place. The PUC had extended the deadline several times over the past year due to the “extraordinary circumstances related to COVID-19.”

Hawaiian Electric, which provides electricity for 95% of residents in the state, including Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lanai, and Hawaii island, said customers may go to hawaiianelectric.com/paymentarrangement to find various payment plan options, including an 18-month plan for residential customers.

Late fees and interest are waived for those enrolled in a payment option plan. The payment options and request forms are available online in eight different languages.

Starting in July, the utility said thousands of residential and smaller commercial customers who meet the threshold for disconnection will automatically have their balance rolled into a 12-month payment plan.

The auto-enrollment will apply to customers behind on payments who do not make contact with Hawaiian Electric. They will receive a notice with their bill when the payment plan starts, the utility said, explaining how the arrangement works, including instructions on how to opt out.

Currently, nearly 17,000 residential customers and about 1,500 commercial customers are past due by more than 60 days, according to Hawaiian Electric.

The utility has about 468,000 customers total, including 307,400, on Oahu.

Bills for customers on payment plans – whether auto-enrolled or by customer request – will include the current charges plus the installment amount.

The installment amounts will differ for each customer.

If a customer’s past due amount is small, then the installment amount will also be a fraction of the bill. However, if a customer has not made any payments for the past year, the total monthly bill could more than double the usual amount.

If a customer does not pay the amount due while on a payment plan, then collection activity may be triggered, and service may be disconnected at some point in the future.

Customers experiencing hardship related to the COVID-19 pandemic are encouraged to seek government and nonprofit agency assistance. A list of resources is available at hawaiianelectric.com/COVID19.

The Kauai Island Utility Cooperative will also be ending its disconnection moratorium next Monday.

KIUC has roughly 35,000 customers, and 1,800 — both residential and commercial — are currently past due on payments by 60 days or more.

“We have reached out to all members with past due balances and many have taken advantage of our available payment plans,” said KIUC spokeswoman Beth Tokioka in an email. “We encourage all customers with overdue balances to contact us to set up a payment plan as soon as possible.”

EXAMPLE OF HAWAIIAN ELECTRIC PAYMENT PLAN

Hawaiian Electric offered an example of how a 12-month payment option works:

>> Say a customer has an outstanding balance of $1,200.

>> Divide the balance by number of months in payment plan: $1,200 divided by 12 = $100. If the current charge is $150, the customer owes $150 + $100, a total of $250.

>> The customer must pay the current charge plus the additional $100 for 12 consecutive months.