Groups want involvement in Kaua'i Electric deal

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau

LIHU'E, Kaua'i — Four organizations — two government and two community-based — have asked the Public Utilities Commission for permission to intervene in its deliberations on the sale of Kaua'i Electric.

Both the seller, Citizens Communications, and the prospective buyer, Kaua'i Island Utility Co-op, have protested the involvement of Life of the Land and the Hawai'i Renewable Energy Alliance.

The other applicants for intervention are the County of Kaua'i, as a representative of the public and as a major power consumer, and the Department of Defense, which is a major electrical user at its Pacific Missile Range Facility.

PUC legal counsel Kevin Katsura said the panel expects to decide within two weeks which will be accepted as intervenors.

The state consumer advocate's office readily becomes a party to the hearings.

Citizens Communications is proposing to sell Kaua'i Electric to the cooperative for $230 million. A previous sale at $270 million was rejected by the PUC.

Kaua'i County commissioned an appraisal of the utility and was told it is worth about $190 million.

Life of the Land Executive Director Henry Curtis said that among his group's concerns are the cost of the purchase and the increasing demand on imported oil for power generation.

"Kaua'i Electric has been sliding down the slippery slope from 100 percent renewables in 1965 to 7 percent this year. ... We worry that if they pay way too much money for this, they won't have the capability left to make the switch back to renewable energy," Curtis said.

Warren Bollmeier, president of the Hawai'i Renewable Energy Alliance, said his organization hopes that the cooperative's goals will include state policy objectives concerning renewable energy such as solar or wind power.

Citizens Communications and the cooperative have filed opposition to the two nongovernmental intervention applications, arguing, in part, that renewable energy is not an issue that is properly before the commission during a decision on a purchase, and that Life of the Land and the Hawai'i Renewable Energy Alliance would unnecessarily broaden the scope of the commission's deliberations.