Jan 10, 2013, 2:02pm HST

Hawaii will exceed 15% clean energy mandate by 2015

 

Alm

Reporter- Pacific Business News

Hawaiian Electric Co.’s Robbie Alm said Thursday that Hawaii will meet, and probably even exceed, its preliminary mandate of achieving 15 percent clean energy by 2015.

“[We will] probably exceed it by a couple of percentage points,” Alm, an executive vice president for the utility, told a wide ranging audience of business leaders, state legislators and other stakeholders at the 9th Annual Hawaii Energy Policy Forum at the state Capitol in Honolulu on Thursday.

The Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative aims to achieve 70 percent clean energy by 2030, which includes 40 percent coming from locally-generated renewable sources and the other 30 percent from energy efficiency and conservation measures.

But although the state is well on its way to reaching its renewable energy goal, Alm cautioned that there’s not much left in the pipeline for projects, other than planned biofuels projects from Aina Koa Pono and Hawaii BioEnergy, as well as the proposed 200 megawatts of wind energy from Lanai and OTEC International’s 100-megawatt ocean thermal energy conversion planned project.

“We’ve got to go to bid again,” Alm said, noting that there are currently only four more bids on the table, including additional geothermal on the Big Island, 200 megawatts of wind energy on Molokai and firm energy from Oahu and Maui.

“We need those four bids out and contracts to work with so developers can go get the financing and permitting to get it done,” he said. “We need to move fast.”

But there are a few “game changers” that Alm said could really help push the state further and faster towards its clean energy goal.

These include the planned undersea cable that would pipe energy from Lanai and Molokai to energy starved Oahu, as well as importing liquefied natural gas, the development of wave energy, changes to the competitive bidding process and environmental compliance.

Duane Shimogawa covers energy, real estate and economic development for Pacific Business News.

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