Hawaii Utility Pursued Green Energy Goals While Fire Mitigation Projects Were Delayed

[Ubiquitous]

Hawaiian Electric is under scrutiny for allegedly slow-walking
modernization and repairs of its electrical grid before the fire that
ripped through the island of Maui last week.

Hawaiian Electric is Hawaii’s principle electric utility, providing
power to roughly 95% of the state. Financial disclosures and reports
show the company worried about the state of its electrical grid, and
specifically the risk of wildfires, but devoted resources to building
out the utility’s green energy network with limited action to mitigate
fire risk, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The scrutiny on the company’s past priorities comes as it faces
allegations in court that it is to blame for the fire last week that
ripped through the historic beach town of Lahaina, killing over 100
people and destroying thousands of buildings. The wildfire is the
deadliest in modern American history, surpassing California’s Camp Fire
that destroyed the town of Paradise in 2019.

Hawaiian Electric CEO Shelee Kimura said during a press conference this
week that the utility would be launching its own investigation. She said
it would cooperate with an investigation by the state attorney general
as well.

“We will be doing our own investigation. The state will be doing an
investigation. We will cooperate fully in that. I think we all believe
it’s important to understand what happened, and I think we all believe
it’s important to make sure it never happens again,” Kimura said this
week.

The utility concluded in a 2019 report after one of the worst fire
seasons in Maui’s history that the company needed to do more to mitigate
fire risk. From 2019 to 2022, the utility spent less than $245,000 on
projects to mitigate fire risk, according to financial filings reviewed
by WSJ. The utility said it spent $84 million to clear hazards away from
power lines and on maintenance since 2018.

The focus on Hawaii’s energy priorities over the past decade has been
dominated by its push for green energy. The state enacted a first-in-
the-country law in 2015 mandating that Hawaii’s grid be powered by 100%
renewable energy by 2045. In 2021, regulators finished a top-to-bottom
restructuring of the regulatory framework to guide that transition,
offering Hawaiian Electric large bonuses for finishing green energy
projects on time, and threatening the utility with fines if it missed
deadlines.

“You have to look at the scope and scale of the transformation within
[Hawaiian Electric] that was occurring throughout the system,” Mina
Morita, the 2011-2015 chair of the state utilities commission, told WSJ.
“While there was concern for wildfire risk, politically the focus was on
electricity generation.”

The utility submitted a plan to the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission
last year that said the utility would spend $190 million on projects on
Maui such as removing trees and brush from areas around power lines and
shoring up the island’s aging electrical infrastructure. While the
commission approved the plan, Hawaiian electric put off implementing it
until it received approval to pay for the project by increasing rates on
customers. That approval still has not been given, according to WSJ.

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