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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Saturday, November 19, 2005

Neighbor Isle electric bills soar

By Greg Wiles
Advertiser Staff Writer

Surging diesel and fuel oil prices are translating into higher prices for electricity users on the Neighbor Islands, where energy surcharges have jumped by at least 50 percent during the past year.

Utility customers are discovering the energy surcharge portion of their bill — the part reflecting changes in fuel prices above a base charge — has more than doubled on the Big Island in the past year, while it has grown 82 percent on Maui.

Kaua'i's residential customers are paying 34.2 cents per kilowatt hour compared with 28.6 cents a year earlier as a result of the increased surcharge.

"My bill went up 10 percent in the past couple of months," said Moloka'i resident Curtis Crabbe, an electrician who's seen his residential bill jump from $95 to $105 in two months. "That's $120 a year."

Hawai'i's electrical bills have jumped as the cost of oil crept higher during the past year. Local utilities are allowed to pass on the increases above a set amount, resulting in higher electricity bills. The most recent increase came as the average U.S. wholesale diesel prices crept higher, reaching a high of $2.78 a gallon on October 19. That was more than double what it was at the start of the year.

At the Kaua'i Island Utility Cooperative about 50 percent of the fuel used in nine generators is diesel, said Joe McCawley, Kaua'i Island Utility manager of regulatory and legislative affairs.

He said electricity prices rising at a time when gasoline prices were falling under the state's wholesale gas cap has provided for some lively discussions with customers, McCawley said. Diesel fuel isn't regulated under the gas cap law and its price reacts to different market factors, he said.

"It's a very popular question these days," he said.

Average residential utility bills have risen statewide in the past 12 months and include:

  • Kaua'i Island Utility's average residential customer uses 500 kilowatts of electricity each month. In October the bill averaged about $171, or almost a fifth more than a year earlier. This includes about a 6-cent per kilowatt hour increase in the so-called "energy adjustment" surcharge.

  • The average utility bill of a residential customer using 600 kilowatt hours on the island of Maui will be about $167.95 this month, an about 17 percent increase from November 2004, Hawaiian Electric said in an e-mail. The energy surcharge rose to about 13 cents per kilowatt hour from 7.1 cents a year earlier.

  • On the Big Island the average home user's bill for 500 kilowatt hours is expected to be $153.20 this month, or $25.08 more than November a year ago. The surcharge rose to 9.3 cents from 4.1 cents in November 2004.

  • The average home customer on O'ahu using 600 kilowatt hours will have a bill of $120.54 this month. That's an increase from the $102.42 a year prior and includes a 3.3 percent rate increase the utility was granted in September. The surcharge rose to about 6.6 cents from about 4.4 cents.

    About 76 percent of the fuel used by Maui Electric Co., a utility that includes service on the Valley Isle, Moloka'i and Lana'i, was diesel last year, according to its Hawaiian Electric's annual filing at the U.S. Securities & Commission.

    Diesel represented about 34 percent of the fuel used in 2004 at Hawaii Electric Light Co. and just 2 percent of the fuel consumed in generating electricity on O'ahu, the filing said.

    The company said its cost for diesel had gone up by about 50 percent on each island during the past year.

    Reach Greg Wiles at gwiles@honoluluadvertiser.com.