Nothing accelerates long-delayed improvements as powerfully as a crisis, and few crises have wounded Hawaii as grievously as the Maui wildfires of Aug. 8, 2023, above all through the loss of 101 residents who lost their lives that day.
Thousands in Lahaina and elsewhere in West Maui were left homeless, and the terrible blazes illuminated how much deferred maintenance and other improvements needed to be accomplished, by multiple stakeholders.
Hawaiian Electric Co. is among these entities called on to make improvements. In a May 30 filing to the state Public Utilities Commission, the utility said it intends to make progress through wildfire risk mitigation focused on Maui, where the risk is greatest, but throughout its installations on Oahu and Hawaii island as well. Kauai’s electric utility is owned by its ratepayers.
The range of improvements under the 3-year plan is justified — indeed, necessary — but Hawaiian Electric needs to find ways of lessening impact on the customers, including the financing option enabled by the state Legislature this past session.
That impact means the proposed rise in rates that would help pay for the upgrades, according to the filing before the PUC. The monthly increases would range between $1 and $5.50 to cover the cost: $1.05 more for Oahu ratepayers, $2.86 more on Hawaii island, and $5.41 more for Maui.
Maui ratepayers would be hardest hit since Hawaiian Electric projects that wildfire safety work on the Valley Isle, which will start as a pilot project, will cost $181 million. The knowledge gained will provide the basis for planning future undergrounding of power lines, according to the utility.
Costs anticipated for the other islands are estimated at $101 million for Hawaii island and $68 million on Oahu. Part of the cost, according to the filing, is covered by existing project allotments, such as a 2024 $95 million federal grant for grid resiliency.
It’s all still a considerable investment that requires ratepayers to underwrite much of it. Hawaiian Electric has indicated that the rate increases can be moderated if the company can use a financing scheme the Legislature authorized in Senate Bill 897, passed April 30.
The key purpose of that measure, which Gov. Josh Green should sign into law, is authorizing “securitization” for electric utilities. In this case, that allows Hawaiian Electric to take out low-interest bonds for infrastructure upgrades, backed by the new fee on customers’ electricity bills. The savings in this kind of financing should enable the utility to keep the increases lower as well.
One of the more controversial aspects of SB 897 involves setting limits on aggregate liability for future fires. The PUC would only be able to set such a limit for any utility over a given time frame after reviewing and approving a wildfire mitigation plan.
The commission must take care to see that any such limit would not shield utilities from too much of their own responsibility in wildfire prevention.
Further, the PUC should ensure that the rise in rates for securitization will produce revenue that should be spent on anti-disaster improvements rather than diverted to other purposes.
Hawaiian Electric projects that roughly two-thirds of the work in its plan will be capital investments in physical infrastructure. The balance would go toward operations and maintenance activities, such as a better program of equipment inspections and scheduling the removal or trimming of trees that pose a fire hazard.
The energy utility’s plan before the PUC also lists other general improvements, such as:
>> Insulating power lines in high-risk areas to prevent sparking that ignites brush.
>> Reinforcing or replacing utility poles.
>> Adding to its surveillance equipment, including weather stations and cameras that can detect potential hazards.
>> Establishing a “wildfire watch office” staffed by a meteorologist who would monitor news reports, weather data and field reports.
>> Taking advantage of artificial-intelligence technology for video camera stations, completely covering all areas at high- and medium-risk of wildfires.
Of course, this mission belongs to more than just the electric utilities. A welcome development last week was the appointment of Dori Booth as the state’s first fire marshal in 46 years. Filling that slot was clearly driven by concern over wildfire risk; lawmakers rightly reestablished the fire marshal’s office in the 2024 legislative session.
Booth, an Army combat veteran with high-level fire-safety job experience, has impressive qualifications to resurrect such an important post. As an Army veteran she specialized in civil-military infrastructure stability and, prior to this appointment, served as fire marshal for an Arizona district and deputy fire marshal for the Phoenix Fire Department.
She will be a key part of this state’s reinforced efforts to be alert to fire risks and be an advocate for initiatives such as wildfire safety planning.
Awareness of this issue should be heightened in all of us, in fact, given the grim lessons of Lahaina a mere two years ago.
