Birmingham, Alabama (Platts)--28Jan2008

Hawaii plans to have 70% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030,
Governor Linda Lingle said Monday at a briefing in Honolulu also attended by
US Assistant Secretary of Energy Andy Karsner.

Karsner and Governor Lingle signed a memorandum of understanding Monday
that will see the state and federal government work together in a long-term
partnership. It hoped the MOU, known as the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative,
will transform Hawaii's energy system and cut its oil consumption by 72%.

Karsner, who heads the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency
and Renewable Energy, said the agency has singled out Hawaii to help attack
the US' dependency on oil.

Under the initiative, DOE pledged its technical and policy expertise to
help demonstrate reliable and affordable technologies in Hawaii. It will focus
on deploying existing technologies and investigating which should be
commercialized.

The program will tap into the $38 billion President Bush has requested to
commercialize technologies that reduce greenhouse gasses, Karsner said. The
first issue, however, is to change the policy environment to allow the
technology and capital to flow to the state, he said. The timeline to begin
broad scale commercialization is 36 to 40 months, he said.

Lingle said the state will create four working groups that will include
legislators, industry and others to address the regulatory barriers that have
slowed the deployment of renewable technologies.