Question: Is it true that the PUC or perhaps HECO has decided not to roll out variable TOU rates statewide now that the one-year Shift and Save pilot program period has ended?
Answer: Yes, Hawaii’s Public Utilities Commission issued Order No. 41713 on May 21, entitled “Closing the Advanced Rate Design Track,” which says that Time-of-Use rates evaluated in the Advanced Rate Design study “did not achieve the essential goals of meaningfully shifting electricity use to daytime hours and empowering all customers to save money” and therefore should not expand as-is to all Hawaiian Electric customers. The order also says that the studied TOU program, marketed as Shift and Save, shall remain open to customers who are currently enrolled, unless they opt out.
Hawaiian Electric closed Shift and Save to new enrollments as of Feb. 1, when the one-year pilot period ended. There were about 20,000 customers in the pilot program, who “will be informed about the program’s close and that they may choose to opt out. The purpose of the pilot was to test how these rates would work in real life in households and businesses. We now have detailed data on customer behavior related to price signals, which can help inform future decisions about rate design,” Darren Pai, a spokesperson for Hawaiian Electric, said in an email Tuesday.
Shift and Save encouraged “customers to shift their energy use from evening peak and overnight hours when rates are higher to the daytime when solar energy is abundant and rates are lower,” Hawaiian Electric’s website says. However, the company’s final report on Shift and Save, posted by the PUC on May 1, said its time-of-use rates “did not achieve a meaningful shift of electricity use to the daytime off-peak period and were not structured and/or implemented to provide all customer categories with an opportunity to reduce their bills, particularly residential customers who work full-time during the day and/or commute in an electric vehicle,” according to the PUC’s order.
Hawaiian Electric and other parties have until June 18 to respond to the PUC’s order.
Q: I read articles about the Shinnyo Lantern Floating at Ala Moana Regional Park, and I was just wondering about the details of the ceremony: what are the lanterns made of, what are they floating on, are they cleaned and reused or recycled afterwards, do any blow away into the open ocean, etc? I realize the importance of the event to the participants in honoring lost loved ones, but am also hoping that the environment is honored and protected from further degradation in this age of diminishing resources and environmental crisis.
A: Each of the 6,000 individual lanterns are comprised of a foam base, paper lantern, a candle in a foil cup and a plastic rudder, according to the event’s website. They’re designed to catch on lines strung across the water to ensure they don’t float out to sea. Volunteers on canoes retrieve them after the ceremony ends. Some parts, such as the foam bases and plastic rudders, are cleaned and reused year after year, while the paper on which prayers and remembrances are written is removed and disposed of “in a proper and spiritually respectful way,” according to the website, lanternfloatinghawaii.com
The ceremony also includes large guiding lanterns and collective remembrance lanterns, which are made of different materials but which also are retrieved and reused, it says.
Shinnyo-en is a school of esoteric Buddhism founded in Japan in the 1930s; its first temple outside of Japan was dedicated in Hawaii in 1971, the website says.
Write to Kokua Line at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 2-200, Honolulu, HI 96813; call 808-529-4773; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.
