New energy plan from HECO 'a mixed plate'
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
Hawaiian Electric Co.'s proposed energy plan for the next 20 years includes a potential new power plant at Campbell Industrial Park to handle peak loads and a possible coal-burning plant. The power company is also considering wind farms and increased use of photovoltaic systems.
"If we describe the energy plan as a lunch, this would be a mixed plate," said HECO spokesman Chuck Freedman. "This plan gets more electrical energy from energy efficiency and renewable energy over the next five years than from building conventional power generation."
HECO submitted its Integrated Resource Plan to the state Public Utilities Commission last week. It includes proposals for the next five years and a 20-year energy strategy.
The PUC has yet to schedule public meetings on the plan, said Catherine Awakuni, a commission counsel.
Highlights of the plan include:
Freedman said the plan does not calculate how O'ahu's dependence on fossil-fuel-based energy would change, if it's implemented.
"The data isn't really in there," he said. "What this data tells you is that there will be more energy derived from other sources."
Jeff Mikulina, director of the Sierra Club's Hawai'i chapter and a member of the advisory group that helped prepare the plan, was particularly bothered by the proposal for a coal-burning plant.
"Coal!" Mikulina said. "Like oil and natural gas, coal is the most carbon intense material we can be burning. We have a responsibility to the greater global good."
Mikulina likes the proposals for wind farms and photovoltaic systems. But he wants even more emphasis on other forms of alternative energy.
"This is the first time that photovoltaic and wind resources have been incorporated into the integrated plan, which is great," Mikulina said. "But there's a heck of a lot more we can do in encouraging and developing solar and wind resources."
Mikulina also criticized the plan's call for a proposed power plant at Campbell Industrial Park by 2009 that would provide power during peak customer use.
"That's the way they've been doing things for the last half century," Mikulina said. "We think it's irresponsible. It's not building a power plant for 2009. It's building a power plant for the next 30 years."
He also criticized the plan's calculations of energy use based on estimates of $40 to $50 per barrel.
"I'm not sure which planet HECO plans to get oil from," he said, "but here on Earth it's running over $60 per barrel."
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.
