The typical Hawaiian Electric Co. customer will receive a $19 refund under a plan finalized by the state Public Utilities Commission yesterday.

Starting this week, HECO said it will return a total of $16.8 million to its 293,000 residential and business customers on O'ahu.

The refund, which will be credited to customers' electricity bills in June and July, is the first ordered by the PUC in about a decade.

"Anything is good," said Ed Chargualaf, who recently moved to Honolulu from Colorado. "I'm pleased to see there's going to be a credit."

While the exact size of the refund will vary according to a customer's electricity usage, HECO said residential customers using 600 kilowatt hours a month will receive a credit of $19.

Customers who use less electricity, such as condo residents, will see a smaller refund.

Shares of HECO's parent, Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc., dropped 41 cents yesterday to close at $25.56 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The refund comes after the PUC revised a 3.3 percent rate hike it approved in 2005. That rate increase was supposed to generate $41 million in additional annual revenues for HECO.

Under yesterday's ruling, the PUC scaled back the rate increase to 2.7 percent, or $33 million a year. The revision came after the PUC decided to exclude a large segment in the utility's rate base: the company's pension assets.

"We know our customers have been anticipating this refund," said Lynne Unemori, Hawaiian Electric Co. vice president for corporate relations.

"Now that the plan has been approved, we can start crediting the refunds to our customers."

MAJOR PROJECTS

Hawai'i residents already pay the highest electricity rates in the nation. And those rates have risen steadily during the past two years as fuel costs have soared.

Excluding the refund, the typical residential customer using 600 kilowatt hours per month pays about $176 a month for electricity.

Honolulu residents David and Diana Tee said they were unimpressed by the HECO refund.

"I'll believe it when I see it," Diana Tee said. "They talk about refunds or rebates all the time."

HECO said it needed the rate increase to pay for major capital projects that the company has completed.

They include: