Running a business in Hawaii — a state boasting what is arguably the wettest spot on the globe, Mount Waialeale with an average annual rainfall of 450 inches — means you should mind your electrical wiring and think twice about insulation.

When it rains and the wind blows, the sparks will fly.

Hawaiian Electric (HECO) earlier this month saw the state buffeted by a few days of torrential rains and strong winds so severe that it could not make enough power — causing the public utility to ration the power, causing rolling blackouts. Public schools were closed on Maui and Honolulu television stations stationed reporters giving the news from a pitch-black Waikiki.

For the power company this could be troubling because its very future is already the subject of national publicity.

After August’s fatal Maui wildfires that destroyed Lahaina and accusations that sparks from downed Hawaiian Electric lines may have contributed to the blaze, the energy company should be worried.

Jim Kelly, HECO’s vice president of government and community relations and corporate communications, called the rolling blackouts “an extraordinary step,” saying that the last major Oahu blackout was more than seven years ago and that Kauai, powered by a different electric company, had an islandwide blackout.

All this, however, should give Hawaii power consumers pause and prompt a review of how HECO is doing. It is a tricky time for the power company.

The public talks about how much electricity costs, while the politicians want to know about minigrids and how the power is distributed.

Some akamai critics like Life of the Land’s Henry Curtis add their own concerns.

“Oahu fossil-fuel-powered units failed, causing rolling blackouts. Kauai had a one-hour islandwide blackout earlier this month caused by a faulty transformer. Some or all Maui fires last August were caused by transmission line sparks,” Curtis said in an interview.

“Life of the Land supports a holistic approach that addresses reliability, resilience and outages. The Public Utilities Commission should be investigating outages and examining how to decrease utility-related failures,” Curtis said.

He added that the public worries the weather is getting more extreme; it is time for regulators to consider other options.

‘The commission needs to proactively look at alternative energy sources, distributed energy, microgrids, insulated transmission lines, undergrounding and storage,” said Curtis.

Help is also coming from the government.

There’s $95 million in federal funds to harden the energy grids on the islands served by Hawaiian Electric.

This is matching money, so it isn’t free, but would cut the cost of the program to customers by 50%.

During the day, solar and wind power contribute much of the power generated, but in the evening HECO generators are needed to power Oahu.

HECO’s Kelly views this as a “transition period” as the power company moves away from fixed generated sources of power to solar and wind, but the costs keep increasing. Putting power lines underground is very expensive. Oahu’s Windward side has no power plant so power lines must go over the Koolau Mountains. Microgrids are very expensive and all those new battery farms must be topped up every day.

At the end of the day, or night, Hawaii’s power is more than just flipping a switch.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com