Gov. Josh Green issued an executive order on Wednesday aimed at dramatically stepping up Hawaii’s production of renewable energy, adding to the deluge of political news that fell on Hawaii along with the real-life rain. The order won’t subside, though — in fact, residents statewide will soon hear more about it from Hawaiian Electric or the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative. Changes in operations and, ahem, billing, are sure to follow.
Green’s order tasks utilities and energy providers with pumping up sources of renewable energy at an accelerated rate, calling for Kauai, Hawaii and Maui counties to produce 100% of their needed energy via renewables by 2035 — a full decade sooner than currently set by law.
Oahu is Hawaii’s most populous island and uses the most energy, making it more difficult to break free of imported fuel. Still, Green has upped the ante for Honolulu County as well, decreeing that Oahu must achieve a 70% reduction in greenhouse gas emission generated by electricity production within the next decade, with carbon pollution (aka greenhouse gas emissions) in 2005 as the baseline.
There are plenty of good reasons to set these accelerated goals, and some are stated in the executive order. Among them: Energy costs “have risen starkly” for islanders, and Hawaii has the highest average residential energy rate of all U.S. states. Green’s vision is to reduce energy costs, expand and accelerate renewable resource development and slash emissions — quite the hat trick, if Hawaii can pull it off.
As the governor also notes, Hawaii’s electrical grids need work. They are generally conceded to be unreliable, subject to power outages and rolling blackouts. Accommodating increasing renewable energy while upgrading the grids is good strategy.
The order clearly has a political component, as well. It’s a rebuttal to the current whiplash in federal policy, with agencies having been directed by the president’s Big Oil-friendly executive order to halt allocated spending toward “the green new deal.” That halt would be generally detrimental to projects for solar or wind power or to advance the use of electric vehicles — many initiatives that have seen support in Hawaii to clear out carbon emissions.
Governors from several states have committed to end their dependence on fossil fuels and cut carbon pollution, and to stay the course, and they’re right to do so. Continued commitment is even more necessary in the face of fluid national policy changes.
Green’s double-down for cleaner energy and climate-change stewardship is welcome, and necessary. Global warming, coastal erosion and more frequent and intense wildfires are already affecting states, including Hawaii, for the worse — and accelerated efforts to reduce the atmosphere’s carbon load are needed to stave off increasing and far more costly damage.
The executive order was developed with the Hawaii State Energy Office (HSEO) and other stakeholders, but curiously, does not include any mention of another energy source that the HSEO includes in a separate report: liquefied natural gas (LNG). Released Tuesday, HSEO’s “Alternative Fuel, Repowering and Energy Transition Study” calls for transitional LNG use as an alternative to oil on Oahu over the next two decades, while Honolulu County works on getting to 100% renewable energy.
But LNG is controversial: Though cleaner and cheaper than oil, it would require building costly infrastructure, and many environmentalists oppose it vigorously because its use produces greenhouse gases (albeit less than oil). Stay tuned for more debate on this issue.
Geothermal energy does get Green’s attention, and his order calls for changes in permitting and added research to develop an “acceptable geothermal deployment strategy” for Hawaii. Geothermal development that can be done safely and cleanly should be part of Hawaii island’s energy portfolio — in fact, it’s already started — and the order’s commitment to explore this more while incorporating community aspirations and concerns, particularly from the Native Hawaiian community, is sound.
Back on Oahu, the executive order’s call for 50,000 “distributed renewable energy installations (such as rooftop solar and battery systems)” across the state will certainly be of benefit. The solar industry is enthusiastically on board, and Hawaii should move forward with all possible speed.
Hopefully, that speed will be faster than in past years. More details on a strategic blueprint are certainly needed within the next couple of months on how things would proceed and cost factors. The order has some general guidance, calling on all state departments to “streamline and accelerate” permitting to hold down costs and shorten project timelines. It specifically calls on the state Public Utilities Commission and Hawaiian Electric to reduce “redundancies and inefficiencies” in energy permitting and getting individual energy producers hooked up to the grid. If an emergency order can help get that done, well, bravo.