Helco raising rates again

[macuu222]

About $5.00 more a month.
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/break...=261594811

[james weatherford]

oh, dear! how surprising!!

I thought geothermal was going to lower our rates...hmmm

[snorkle]

Geothermal won't save us any money as it is dependent upon HELCO's state of the art Power Distribution System.

Some other awesome technology developed in the same era include the telegraph and the steamboat. What would we do without these helpful inventions.

[ericlp]

The PUC said the increase is part of the plan to "decouple, or break the link between sales and total electric revenues and thereby removes the utilities' disincentives to increase energy efficiency and integrate customer-sited generation, such as rooftop photovoltaic systems."

Wow, so were paying for customer-sited generation. Hmmm, Great... I found it interesting that the 5 bucks is for the average 600 KW's usage per month. Just happy I am way under that usage.

[Obie]

Geothermal would cost less if it were allowed to be developed.

Instead we are now seeing rate increases that will allow those with the resources to be able to afford solar panels to connect to the grid.

[David M]

Another day to be happy to be off grid

David

Ninole Resident
Please visit vacation.ninolehawaii.com

[wax]

The Honolulu story is about the Oahu utility (HECO) granted increase. Even though HECO owns HELCO - the story does not say that HELCO was given a rate increase, which it was not. This does not apply to Hawaii Island - where we already pay about 25% more than Oahu rate payers.

[macuu222]

"PUC also approved similar increases for the Hawaii Electric Light Co. on the Big Island and the Maui Electric Co. that serves Maui, Lanai and Molokai."

[pahoated]

The increase for Hawaii island is higher.

This has all been covered before. The geothermal power purchase agreement (PPA) was made under a mandated Avoided Cost Contract (ACC) by Governor Lingle and the legislature in 2008. This meant that HELCO had to pay the same wholesale rate for geothermal as if it was being produced by burning oil, ie, the rate is tied to the cost of a barrel of oil. This base portion of the contract, 30MW, is for 20 years. In 2010, the state legislature removed ACC as a mandate for energy contracts and the additional 8MW from PGV is at industry standard rate, about 10 cents per kilowatt-hour. Energy PPA are usually for 20 years and the new contracts that have been made since 2010 do not have ACC imposed on them, so they are at their respective industry standard rates.

This gets really tedious. The data and information is right there on your HELCO bill. The rate charges are split in two main categories, Base Load Power and Alternative Energy. The Base Load Power includes the oil burning plants along with the 30MW ACC power from PGV. HELCO still gets more than 50% from oil burning plants. The rate from those plants is 80 cents to $1 per kilowatt-hour. When the price of oil goes up, that rate goes up.

The alternative energy like wind, solar, the additional 8MW non-ACC contract with PGV have an electric rate that averages out to about 30 cents per kilowatt-hour. The reduced rates from these alternative energy sources keep our rates lower than if it was all coming from oil burning plants.

There are many questions about the efficiency and accounting at HELCO that are legitimate questions that aren't being answered. Residential solar PV is a teeny, tiny part of the base load power requirement. If they were totally off-line, then there would be little problem. It's all of them only being affordable by being net-metering is what is causing balancing problems with excess power being provided at the times it's not needed. This problem is getting large enough that the utility could say part of the cost of adding solar PV is a switch box at the source, to turn off net-metering when it's not needed.

"This island Hawaii on this island Earth"

[Mimosa]

Read between the lines.Each island except for the island that has it's own utility has a small increase.
Decoupling yeah uh huh.
All it really means is keeping the share holders happy.
Even off grid,we all shop at stores and petrol stations that require HELLCO for our purchases.
This small increase is to off set the PV supplied power and keep the shareholders happy.
Read between the lines.
Profit profit profit ...............