Island Voices
Don't let the lights go out

By Kurt Yeager
President and CEO of the Electric Power Research Institute, based in Palo Alto, Calif.

The recent controversy over Hawaiian Electric's Kamoku-Pukele transmission line project is understandable. No one likes electric infrastructure in their neighborhood.

But the California power crisis is a real-life example of what happens when the installation of needed infrastructure is discouraged or halted because of shortsighted policies — however well-intended — combined with a climate of investment uncertainty and inadequate incentives.

This energy crisis has put California, a state with a reputation of being on the leading edge of technology, business and commerce, at considerable risk. The impacts are staggering. And since California contributes almost 20 percent of our nation's economy, the ripple effect is likely to further dampen consumer confidence, discourage business investment and prolong the downturn in the economy.

Let me make the point clearer. Electricity demand in Silicon Valley is now outstripping supply, not just in the quantity but also in the quality of available power. Digital technology requires a level of reliability unimagined 20 years ago, and if we can't meet it, the bright promise of the digital age, equally essential to the prosperity and quality of life in Hawai'i, is going to be dimmed.

There has been a lot of publicity about how lack of power generation has caused problems in California. But it's also a fact that the problems of this winter, and the even larger ones looming over this coming summer, have been exacerbated by a lack of transmission capacity to move the available power where and when it's needed.

The time to upgrade your system is before there is a crisis — before the lights go out and your society and economy are at risk.

Unlike the Mainland, Hawai'i is isolated and cannot import power. This means that more, not less, redundancy is required on the HECO system.

The installation of HECO's proposed Kamoku-Pukele project would provide a much-needed upgrade that would both immediately improve the reliability of the transmission system while confidently providing for the growing power demands of the increasingly electrified community.

As a professional in the energy industry, and as someone who is living firsthand through the crisis in California, I urge you to learn from the experiences of others and act expeditiously now, before the lights go out.