Tag Archives: Bill Walter

Geothermal, Lowering Electric Rates, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources

‘Behind the Plug & Beyond the Barrel’

May 5, 2014 Richard Ha

Richard Ha writes:

I spoke on behalf of the Big Island Community Coalition (BICC) at the Hawai‘i Island Renewable Energy Solutions Summit 2014 on April 30th, which was titled “Behind the Plug and Beyond the Barrel," and here's what I said:

Good morning. Thanks for the introduction. I will use just this one slide, and you can read our mission statement on it, which is to lower the cost of electricity. “To make Big Island electricity rates the lowest in the state by emphasizing the use of local resources.”

I would like to spend some time talking about who makes up the BICC.

Dave DeLuz, Jr. – President of Big Island Toyota.

John Dill – Contractors Association, and Chair of the Ethics Commission

Rockne Freitas – Former Chancellor Hawai‘i Community College

Michelle Galimba – Rancher, Board of Agriculture

Richard Ha – Farmer

Wallace Ishibashi – Royal Order of Kamehameha, DHHL Commissioner

Kuulei Kealoha Cooper- Trustee, Jimmy Kealoha and Miulan Kealoha Trust.

Noe Kalipi – Former staffer for Sen Akaka, helped write the Akaka Bill, energy consultant

Kai'u Kimura- Executive Director of ‘Imiloa.

Bobby Lindsey – OHA Trustee

Monty Richards – Kahua Ranch

Marcia Sakai – Vice Chancellor for Administrative Affairs, former Dean of UH Hilo, College of Business

Bill Walter- President of Shipman, Ltd., which is the largest landowner in Puna.

These folks are all operating in their private capacities. I'm chair of the BICC, and the only person from Hawai‘i to have attended five Peak Oil conferences. I've visited Iceland and the Philippines with Mayor Kenoi's exploratory group.

As you can imagine, the BICC has strong support all across political parties and socioeconomic strata. People get it in five minutes.

Oil and gas are finite resources, and prices will rise. One note about natural gas: the decline rate of the average gas well is very high. Ninety percent of the production comes out in five years. This is worrisome.

Hawai‘i Island relies on oil for sixty percent of its electricity generation; the U.S. mainland only two percent.

As the price of oil rises, our food manufacturers and producers become less competitive, as we all know. Food security involves farmers farming. And if the farmers make money, the farmers will farm.

What can we do? By driving the cost of electricity down, the Big Island can have a competitive edge to the rest of the world.

Since rising electricity rates act like a giant regressive tax, lowering electricity rates would do just the opposite. And since two-thirds of the economy is made up of consumer spending, this would be like "trickle up" economics. If the rubbah slippah folks had extra money, they would spend and everyone would benefit.

The lowest-hanging fruit:

1. Geothermal. Allows us to dodge the finite resource bullet. It is the lowest-cost base power. The Big Island will be over the hot spot for 500,000 to a million years.

2. We throw away many lots of MW of electricity every night. Hu Honua will probably throw away 10 MW for ten hours every night. PGV, maybe 7 MW for ten hours.

3. Wind, too.

Maybe HELCO will allow us to move the excess electricity free. They don't make any money on the throwaway power now, anyway. What if we used it for something that won't compete with them? Then people could bid for the excess, throwaway power for hydrogen fueling stations, to make ammonia fertilizer, and to attract data centers. Hawaii could become the renewable energy capital of the world. People would love to come here and look at that. As airline ticket costs rise, the walk around cost in Hawai‘i would not.

The BICC call for lowering electricity costs could leave future generations a better Hawai‘i. And that is what we all want.

Big Island, Community, Food Security, Government, Science

Bill Walter on Bill 113

November 15, 2013 Richard Ha 3 Comments

Richard Ha writes:

In this letter to the Hawai‘i County Council, Bill Walter of W.H. Shipman expresses very well what we farmers are trying to articulate.

Councilwoman Wille points to a stack of testimony, taller than the stack opposing Bill 113, and says, "The people have spoken."

If we used "tonnage of food produced on the Big Island" as a means to compare, though, the stack representing the folks opposed to Bill 113 would be 10 times taller.

But they did not bother to listen to the farmers.

Click to listen to what the farmers producing food on this island think.

Community, Government, Lowering Electric Rates

Bill Walter Tells PUC No to 4.2% HELCO Increase

November 29, 2012 Richard Ha

Richard Ha writes:

Here is Bill Walter’s testimony against HELCO’s proposed 4.2 percent rate increase, which he submitted to the PUC. Tomorrow (Friday, November 30, 2012) is the deadline for all testimony against this rate increase, as well as the proposed Aina Koa Pono project. You can email your testimony to: hawaii.puc@hawaii.gov.

It’s in the interest of the utility, as well as in the interest of the people, that we all seek lower electricity rates.

To: hawaii.puc@hawaii.gov
Subject: HELCO RATE INCREASE OF 4.2% – Docket 2012 – 0099

Commissioners,

Thank you for the opportunity to write you on this subject. At some point, the questions before you on various rate increases proposed by HELCO/HECO are simple:

•How much is enough? and

•When do we draw the line on increases?

We understand that while the questions are essentially fairly simple, finding answers can seem very difficult. Those wanting the rates to increase run through myriad statistics, data, logic and come up with apparently compelling reason. These answers come in an age old context of how we, as a society that is primarily market based, handle a monopoly supplier of an essential ingredient of our modern life. Over the generations the solution has typically revolved around ensuring a reasonable return on company (hence, stockholder) assets while providing a level of service that ensures quality to the community. While in a general case over the last 75 years that may have been reasonable, we suggest questioning that – at least for this community at this time. Please note the following:

• As it is, Hawaii Island rate payers pay four times the US national average for electric power. We pay a 25% premium compared to Oahu – today.

• Hawaii Island residents include among the most economically challenged in the State of Hawaii. While certainly not the only reason, the high cost of power works to keep our residents economically challenged. Why?

The cost of operating any business with more than a marginal energy input on the Island experiences higher energy costs than competition from most other locations. When you add to this the cost of getting our product to market (or the market to our product in the case of tourism) the competitive hurdle can become prohibitive to overcome. This increase will only add to that hurdle.

• Because of the integral nature of electric power to our way of life, the cost of electricity is little different in effect from the most regressive of taxes. If you look at this simile several issues jump at you:

In the last four years governments across the country have been highly reticent to raise taxes understanding the negative impact higher taxes would have on the economy and on those most economically challenged. This relates back to the point above – namely that higher electric power costs have a depressing affect on the economy of the Island of Hawaii, at their current level.

Local governments – including ours here on the Island of Hawaii – have taken extraordinary steps to reduce the cost of government services while retaining government service levels. On this island that has included furloughs of County workers, layoffs, employment freezes, job sharing, looking for efficiencies that allow for reduced expenses across the board, reductions in executive staff salaries, suspension or reduction in non essential services – and the list goes on. It is common place to hear of businesses on this island taking similar – and in some cases more radical steps to reduce expenses. It is uncomfortable, but notable that we have heard of no such steps taken by our utilities in order to try to pass on to the community reduced costs that may be helpful in these difficult times. In fact, what we have heard is like this – requests for higher prices. Somehow that difference is hard to take.

•The long term reality is that power generation is moving to dis-integration much as phone service has rapidly moved in that direction. It would be wise for both the Commission and the companies to ask if it is not time to consider this coming dis-integration. The only way for the current system to survive in the long run is to be in a price reduction, not price increase mode. The cost of standalone competition is inexorably being reduced. Sooner than later only those who cannot afford to get off the grid will have departed it – how will that work and will the commission have been a part of that scenario?

So my short answer to these questions is that “enough is already enough” and the line needs to be drawn now – for the survival both of the island economy and for the survival of the utility.

My personal response has been to join the Big Island Community Coalition looking for ways to reduce power costs. I am becoming proactive in this direction. We ask that the commission and, indeed, HELCO/HECO become proactive in this direction as well. Better that we spend our efforts looking for cost reducing solutions than for cost increasing reasons.

Thank you for your consideration.

Bill Walter

Articles, Big Island, Community, Lowering Electric Rates, Renewable Energy Sources

‘HELCO & Your Bill: What’s Wrong With This Picture?’

August 27, 2012 Richard Ha 1 Comment

Richard Ha writes:

This Op-Ed piece just ran at Civil Beat, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald and West Hawaii Today.

HELCO & YOUR BILL: WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

By Noelani Kalipi

Hawaii Electric Light Co. is applying to raise Big Island electricity rates by 4.2 percent — shortly after its parent company announced impressive profits that were 70 percent higher than last year.

What’s wrong with this picture?

We — John E.K. Dill, Rockne Freitas, Richard Ha, Wallace Ishibashi, Ku‘ulei Kealoha Cooper, Noelani Kalipi, Ka‘iu Kimura, Robert Lindsey, H.M. “Monty” Richards, Marcia Sakai, Bill Walter — invite you to join our newly formed group, the Big Island Community Coalition. Our mission is “to work together as an island community for the greater good of Hawai‘i Island and its people.”

Our first priority: To make Big Island electricity rates the lowest in the state by emphasizing the use of our ample local resources.

The proposed HELCO rate increase, coming at a time of record profits, does not sit right with us.

We understand the regulatory system, which is rate-based. Our concern is that we continue to see requests for rate increases at the same time that we read about record profits for the utility.

While we understand the fiduciary duty to maximize profits for the shareholders, we believe the utility’s responsibility to the rate payer is just as important. As part of good corporate business, it should benefit both by investing its profits into a sustainable grid.

The Big Island is one of the few places on the planet where we have robust, renewable energy resources that can be harnessed effectively to provide firm, reliable, low cost electricity for our residents.

One example is geothermal, which costs about half the price of oil. We also have solar, wind and hydroelectric. We have resources right here that can both lower our electricity costs and get us off of imported oils.

Lower rates would mean that when the grid needs repairs, or the cost of oil goes up again, it will not be such a punch-in-the-gut to our electric bills.

If HELCO is allowed to raise its rates by the requested 4.2 percent, plus raise rates again via the Aina Koa Pono project, and then the oil price goes up, that would be a triple whammy price hike on your electric bill.

Big Island Mayor Billy Kenoi has sent a strong message that the county will not support new renewable energy projects — such as Aina Koa Pono, which would add surcharges to every electric customer’s bill — unless they result in cheaper energy. “Unless it has lower rates, we will not support it,” he said recently.

UH-Hilo just had a $5.5 million electric bill — almost $500,000 more than last year — and HELCO’s proposed 4.2 percent rate increase would add another $230,000 to their bill. The same thing is happening at hospitals, hotels and businesses. Farmers’ expenses are going way up, which threatens our food security. Electricity rate increases ripple through every part of our economy. They are already rippling.

People are already struggling with their monthly HELCO bill. Some are having their lights turned off.

As rates continue to increase, more people will leave the grid and fewer will remain to pay for the infrastructure, meaning that those households and businesses that remain (because they cannot afford to get off the grid) will pay even more.

You may think the electric utility is a big powerful entity that you cannot affect, but you can. Pay attention! Show up! Write a letter! Do something! If you leave your name and contact information at www.bigislandcommunitycoalition.com, we will send an occasional email to keep you informed of what’s happening, and how you can help.

‘Nuff already!!

Let’s be clear. This is not about how green the energy is. This is about how much the energy costs. This is not about saving the world. It’s about saving ourselves first, so we are in good condition to help save the world.

We had hoped that HECO would have a balanced approach to solving the problems. There are books written on how corporations can take care of people and the environment as well as their investment. The term is called “triple bottom line.”

From The Triple Bottom Line: How Today’s Best-Run Companies Are Achieving Economic, Social and Environmental Success – and How You Can Too:

Increasingly, businesses are expected to find ways to be part of the solution to the world’s environmental and social problems. The best companies are finding ways to turn this responsibility into opportunity. We believe that when business and societal interests overlap, everyone wins.

Rising electricity costs are like a regressive tax, where the poor pay a disproportionate amount of their income. Only it’s worse. As the price of oil rises, people who are able to, leave the grid. This leaves a diminishing number of people – those who cannot afford to leave – to pay for the grid.

What’s wrong with this picture?!