HELCO bill

[Carey]

HEI (parent company of HELCO) NASDAQ link:
http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/he

Info on annual dividend:
http://www.hei.com/

ADD re solar:
The panel costs have really gone down & the warranty period up... most have a warranty for 24-40 years now (some of this is driven by roof life requirements, some on better material)

[steve1]

Last summer I was talking to one of the contract tree trimmers (for HELCO) who was complaining about the excessive amount of overtime hours they were requesting the company work. He said HELCO was trying to "Burn-Off" excess funds to keep their numbers low, presumably so they could ask the PUC for a rate increase.

I believe the CEO of HECO on these rocks in the middle of the Pacific Ocean makes more money than the President of The US of A. Why is that?

[unknownjulie]

1.24 per share is awesome! I'll be buying this in the future. Carey, thanks for the info!

[kalakoa]

I'll address relative cost, since I've been off-grid this entire time.

Built my first system for about $3K, it met all our needs, batteries lasted 3.5 years:

$3000 / 42 = $71.43/month

Replaced batteries ($800). Assuming another 3.5 years worst-case:

$3800 / 84 = $45.24/month

On top of that, maybe another $100/year in gas, mostly during Dec/Jan when there's not quite enough sun (and whenever I run the big power tools).

Note that HELCO's "burn-off" of extra funds (in order to avoid paying dividends) is copied right out of the State's playbook; the govt often "moves money around" to avoid the mandated refunds and/or tax rate decrease.

[DanielP]

unknownjulie,

4.4% awesome? Pretty fair, but awesome?

[Andrew]

Our personal usage (2 adults) runs from about $75/month to $140/month. We have propane hot water on demand and propane oven/stove. We do about 3 or 4 loads of laundry/week and very rarely use the clothes dryer. We hang our things to dry. During periods of intense and prolonged rains we shut the house and run our dehumidifier to dry things out. We don't use any heating or air-conditioning except for one floor fan. We have all the usual electronics (all energy efficient) and our light bulbs were all replaced with the energy efficient curly fluorescent kind years ago. Our 5 gallon propane tank needs filling about every third week and costs about $20/fill.

A plug for HELCO: Recently we had a tree fall and damage our electric/phone lines. I called HELCO and quickly got through to a service person who was both knowledgeable and efficient. I was told that a service team would arrive to correct the problem in an hour or so. Within that same time frame a HELCO truck arrived with 2 guys who were very professional, friendly and efficient. They had the tree down and cut into manageable pieces and the lines repaired and the power restored in less than an hour. After running a few tests they were on their way and our power was back up and running. I can't say how pleased I was to not only have same day service but to have the whole thing resolved in under 2 hours from my initial phone call. (I'm still waiting a few days later for Hawaiian Tel to restore my phone service)

I know it's in vogue to rant against HELCO but I am a happy customer and think the service I receive is well worth my monthly costs.

___________________________

[kalakoa]

Correction: there is no "oversight" when you already have "regulatory capture".

If the State "cared", we would have permit waivers for small off-grid systems, instead of making people "criminals" for hooking up some solar panels and batteries without expensive "permission" from the government. Yes, I realize this involves actual energy independence, not just lip service to same.

[rocketman]

House just passed all inspections.... can't wait to get there. Anyone need a housefull of junk in Ca.??

[Wuzzerdad]

quote:

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Originally posted by pahoated

quote:

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Originally posted by Wuzzerdad
Disclaimer.... I own HELCO and ORMAT stock. So keep over using power, just for me please! []

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You can't have bought HELCO stock because it is a subsidiary of Hawaiian Electric, the parent company that issues the stock.

Contrary to street belief, Hawaiian Electric is not swimming in profits. In fact, in their financial statement:

Earnings growth (last year) -1.39%
Earnings growth (this year) -2.57%
Annual profit (last year) $140.5M
Net profit margin 4.16%

Had revenue of $3.4 billion but only ended up with $140 million profit. Under 5% profit margin isn't really considered corporate greed. It shows how much money leaves Hawaii from Hawaiian Electric having to still buy over 60% of its energy from burning imported oil. It gets really tiresome to hear the same wrong things about HELCO over and over and over. This isn't any defense of HELCO, they have an archaic billing system but they do have a very challenging environment to work in. Falling albizia trees are something HELCO has had to take responsibility for, even though it was the citizenry that put them there. How much profit is there in that? The high electric rate is due to oil cost pass-through and as long as burning oil for a solid baseload power source continues, then electric rates will stay high.

"This island Hawaii on this island Earth"

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WTF are you talking about with your rant, I own Hawaii Electric Company Stock, as in Hawaii Electric Company or HELCO. (HE)

http://hawaiianelectric.com/portal/site/heco/

So what are you saying exactly? [!] As a matter of fact I own a bunch of it, and am happy with it's returns. You figures are lies BTW, check it out. Over 4% is a good return for any public utility. And they do it year after year. Anymore than that and the public rate comission would shut them off and make it 100% public controlled and operated. Thats the price you pay for a secure investment in public utilities. 4% a year over 20 years is how much of a return? Anybody?? How about 110%???

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/he

And Ormat (ORA) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ormat_Industries

[!]

Jerk





I started out with nothing and I still have most of it.
Mahalo
Rick

[Wuzzerdad]

I hate to tell the sheep that the shepherd is going to slaughter you. They already started by convincing you that the "grid" had become unstable because of solar. Thats hogwash everybody. For every KW added to the grid, the fossil fuel fired plant has to work less. It is distributed energy, out on the gird that is already built to handle the loads and has done so. There is not a net surplus of energy nor any danger of the grid failing because of the loads. It actually is much more efficent because the energy is used much closer to the place it was produced. Not as much transmission loss over long distances. Electricity runs both ways through the wires, to and from where it is produced as demand is created or shed. Get an "expert" solar guy to start raising heck with HELCO and the legislature before they take your net metering ability away. All solar inverters will not produce more energy than what can be consumed by the provider and the grid, ohms law, you know, actual science governs that statement. [!] All Helco has to do to balance the grid is to raise or lower the voltage of their plants to adjust the amount of energy it produces. Which is easily done. And monitor, which they already do through the net metering meter the voltage output of the distributed inverters and make the customers adjust their voltage out put accordingly. This is a function of software on all modern UL 1741 certified solar power inverters. Watts is the amount of work, with voltage being like pressure, pushing the watts (curent) where it needs to go.

I am infinately qualified to comment about this, so go ahead and take a shot about it. [:p]

I started out with nothing and I still have most of it.
Mahalo
Rick