Question: HECO’s time-of-use pilot program will charge different rates for electricity depending on when the customer uses it. The highest rate (evening/night) will be nearly triple the lowest rate (daytime). Did they lower the daytime rate from HECO’s standard 24/7 rate for this pilot program? Or just increase nighttime rates?
Answer: Yes to your first question and no to your second. “The pilot daytime rate plus lower modified surcharges is about half the current effective residential rate,” according to a news release issued Thursday by Hawaiian Electric and the Public Utilities Commission, announcing that the “Shift and Save” pilot program would begin this fall.
This program encourages customers to adjust their habits so that electricity use rises during daytime hours, when the rate is lower because cheaper solar energy is abundant, and falls at night, when rates are higher because costly fossil fuels are burned to generate energy.
When Kokua Line wrote about Shift and Save in April, the pilot program was expected to begin July 1, but the rates were not finalized with the PUC in time. Now the rates have been released, as follows, and about 4% of HECO’s commercial and residential customers are being notified that they’ve been selected to participate when the pilot begins Oct. 1.
The rate periods will be Daytime (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.), Evening Peak (5 to 9 p.m.) and Overnight (9 p.m. to 9 a.m.)
Oahu
>> Daytime: 19 cents per kilowatt-hour
>> Evening Peak: 57 cents per kWh
>> Overnight: 38 cents per kWh
Maui
>> Daytime: 20 cents per kWh
>> Evening Peak: 59 cents per kWh
>> Overnight: 39 cents per kWh
Hawaii island
>> Daytime: 22 cents per kWh
>> Evening Peak: 66 cents per kWh
>> Overnight: 44 cents per kWh
A total of about 15,000 residential and 1,700 business customers on Oahu, Maui and Hawaii island will learn this week that they’re being enrolled in the yearlong pilot. They’ll be notified by email and/or postal mail, and get a reminder about a month before the program begins.
Participants were selected at random to represent a variety of customers, including those with rooftop solar. Once selected, customers can opt out if they wish, but that means they won’t get to offer feedback on time-of-use rates, which may roll out for all customers by 2025 after an analysis of the pilot program by the PUC.
Customers who don’t receive an enrollment notice are not in the pilot program, and rates for them are unchanged, the news release said.
The first Shift and Save bill will be for November, according to HECO’s website. The program has safeguards to keep customers’ bills from skyrocketing as they adjust to new routines. For each of the first six months, residential customers’ bills will be capped at no more than $10 above what they would have paid at the standard rate (Schedule R), and bills for commercial customers will be capped at no more than 4% above what they would have paid outside the pilot.
Shift and Save customers will receive tips on ways to adjust usage to capitalize on the varying rates, which will be in effect seven days a week. Running heavy appliances such as washers and dryers during the day, installing timers so that water heaters activate after 9 a.m., and charging electric vehicles during off-peak hours are a few suggestions.
Auwe
Auwe to the driver of a BMW who almost caused an accident Wednesday. I had to brake hard to avoid a collision as I was legally merging left. This driver did what I have seen many other drivers do at the same location — merge right across a solid white line leading to the H-1 freeway onramp on Lunalilo by the post office. People don’t seem to know not to cross a solid white line! C’mon people, learn the rules and drop these unsafe habits. — Concerned driver
Mahalo
Mahalo nui loa to the person(s) who found and turned in my granddaughter’s purse to the security person at Ross Dress for Less at Windward Mall on Wednesday. My granddaughter thought she forgot it in the car and became hysterical when she couldn’t find it. She’s forever grateful to the person(s) who found it. — Aloha, JRL
Write to Kokua Line at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-500, Honolulu, HI 96813; call 808-529-4773; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.
