Energy

In 2012 Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winning economist and Columbia University Business School Professor visited Hawaii....

The construction of a 50,000 panel solar farm at the entrance of the Wai‘anae Coast at Kahe Point is being proposed....

This morning, the DOE announced it has selected Chevron Energy Solutions to help lead implementation of the five-year sustainable energy program, to be called Ka Hei....

EDF has been advocating for states to establish On-Bill Repayment (OBR) programs that allow property owners and tenants to finance clean energy....

The sequence of events seems to go like this: Elected officials – in this case our Governor – are treated to a persuasive sales pitch and sign off prematurely on a “bold new concept.”....

...residential electricity rates are three times the national average....

Record 18% of electricity used by Hawaiian Electric customers was from renewable sources....

It turns out they never needed the battery system in the first place.... 

...its major impact has been as a funding source for energy and food security initiatives....

...Xtreme Power earned the 15th spot on Inc. Magazine's 500/5000 list of the fast growing private companies in the U.S. in 2012--now they're BK....

...the economic life of onshore wind turbines is between 10 and 15 years, not the 20 to 25 years projected by the wind industry itself, and used for government projections....

These bills offer 50 million dollars in bonds for the Ikehu Molokai project proposed by Molokai Ranch and Princeton Energy....

...nearly a century after the generating station first started providing electricity to the people of Oahu....

This brief analysis is a simple case of a picture is worth one thousand words....

KIUC has charged $10.27 a month to customers who choose not to use a wireless smart meter....

Xtreme Power...announced today that it filed voluntary petitions for relief under Chapter 11....

A total of 17,609 solar installations with more than 129 megawatts capacity were added....

The Kuakini project is part of Metrus' $75 million commitment to the White House's Better Buildings Challenge....

...a “glaring problem” with Mr. Asquith’s motion was that it did not include the PUC....

...some of the worst-performing buildings in the country have received LEED's highest scores....

The Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) Nominating Committee has confirmed 11 candidates for its Board of Directors election on March 8, 2014....

HECO enjoys full revenue decoupling, fuel and purchased power pass-through recovery, rates based on forward test years...and recovery of increases in certain operating expenses and capital investments between rate cases through riders....

... why should an ever-expanding list of business risks be transferred from the utility to its customers? ....

Today, riskier investments appear to improve public pension funding. Current accounting rules mean that riskier investments are given higher expected rates of return....

OTEC is allegedly building a sea-water air conditioning system for downtown Honolulu.

...in the event the commission receives evidence that the Disciplinary Board of the Hawaii Supreme Court has issued a ruling which disqualifies Mr. Caliboso, the commission intends to re-visit the issue....

When the PTC was last extended, in January 2013, Congress changed the criteria. A project only had to be in construction before the expiration date to be eligible for the tax credit....

The renewable energy projects presented in this directory are demonstrating progress in becoming commercial enterprises....

Beginning January 1, 2014, the federal government will ban the use of 60-watt and 40-watt incandescent light bulbs....

...wastes productive land, wastes taxpayer funds, and lies about sustainable green jobs....

Because HELCO's renewable energy generation output is in excess of the statutory forty percent, HELCO must demonstrate that the project provides cost reduction benefits to ratepayers....

...impacts on gross state product are estimated to be negative (up to -$63 million)....

The Clinton Global Initiative recognized WEfficiency as a change-making commitment. And of course: Money shower!....

...to design, manage and install energy efficiency measures that will upgrade facilities, reduce energy usage by about 49 percent and with additional operational improvements save a total of $518 million at 12 state-operated airports....

A barrel of Brent currently changes hands for $109; WTI fetches just $98; HECO pays $132....

If you feel like you’re not paying enough, you’re in luck....

...FERC oversees all permits for hydropower plans. The process is so onerous that license-seekers sometimes have to obtain permits from up to 25 different agencies. It can take years....

Recent confidential negotiations between Molokai Ranch, California wind developer Princeton Energy, Maui County and Maui Electric Company, however, have cast doubt....

U.S. energy policy should be changed to reflect its newfound energy abundance....

The quotes below are a sample of the responses I received to part 1 ....

It is easy to manipulate the numbers when it comes to talking about subsidies....

This UHERO 101 intends to clarify some of the rate and policy aspects of PV in Hawai‘i, and explores the two opposite driving forces of PV adoption....

Hawaiian Electric is helping customers whose rooftop photovoltaic (PV) installations were underway in September when the utility revised its interconnection procedures....

The United States will surpass Russia and Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil producer by 2015, and be close to energy self-sufficiency in the next two decades, amid booming output from shale formations....

...thanks to Senator Schatz’s flawed advocacy, our electricity costs will increase....

“If you heard the message as, ‘Your bill is going to drop,’ those people feel a sense of disappointment,” said Doug McLeod, Maui County’s energy commissioner....

...the vast majority of installations are demanded by households with the median income and higher....

The lawsuit states that a second fire—also previously described by First Wind management as ‘small’--resulted in $2,000,000 in damages....