COMMENTARY
Energy agreement means transformative change
By Jeffrey Mikulina
In my favorite "Car Talk" episode, the caller laments the heap he is driving, describing to Click and Clack how the car's transmission is dropping out, the pistons seizing, the brakes squealing, and everything else basically falling apart. Their advice is unequivocal: "Pop the hood, see the radiator cap? Unscrew it. Now screw in a brand new car underneath."
Such is the advice offered by the Hawai'i Clean Energy Initiative for Hawai'i's antiquated energy system. We've been tweaking around the edges for decades, but to get off of expensive fossil fuels for real, we need a new car under the cap — we need transformative change.
The roadmap for that transformation arrived last Monday in the form of a historic agreement between the state and Hawaiian Electric Co. If fully enacted, the deal could accelerate cleaner energy sources, smarter use of energy, and lower utility bills.
Sure, it's tough to get excited about yet another promise — particularly with all the hot air we hear around election time — but this deal is different. Hawai'i's electric utility is agreeing to fundamentally redefine itself. If done right, the utility will transform from a power-generating company to an energy-services provider.
What makes the agreement so powerful?
One of the most valuable parts of the agreement is the recognition that our outdated power grid is a barrier to the green energy revolution. We need to upgrade to grid 2.0 (from grid 0.5). Currently, electricity flows in one direction: from the power plant to your home or business. This is much like television in the 1960s. When you turned on the TV, you watched whatever one of the three networks was broadcasting. You couldn't store the broadcast and you couldn't contribute your own content. That's roughly how our power grid operates today.
To take advantage of distributed and diversified sources like solar, wind and wave, the grid must become smarter and have the capacity to store electricity. The agreement will make Hawai'i's grid more like today's Internet — where distributed servers both send and receive packets of information — and less like yesterday's commercial television.
The agreement announced last week is a well-thought-out blueprint to initiate these transformative changes. The Blue Planet Foundation — a nonprofit dedicated to ending Hawai'i's fossil fuel use — applauds Hawaiian Electric, the state, and the Department of Energy for their vision and effort on developing this accord.
What happens next is critical. Implementation will make the difference between transformation and business as usual. The process forward must be inclusive, transparent and fair. Too much power vested in one — one system, one fuel, one company — created our current situation.
Democratizing power, as this extraordinary agreement promotes, strengthens Hawai'i's energy future. We'll be screwing in a hybrid rather than a gas-guzzler underneath our old radiator cap.
Jeffrey Mikulina is executive director of Blue Planet Foundation. He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.
