Decision due on new
HECO lines by year-end
Hawaiian Electric Co. will chose one of three options to add electric transmission lines in East Oahu by the end of the year, a company spokesman said yesterday.
But a planned state Public Utilities Commission study could open doors for less costly ways to improve the reliability of electricity in Waikiki, East Oahu and the Windward Coast, said one opponent to HECO's plans.
"If there is a need for anything in East Oahu, the need is for distributed generation and not transmission lines," said Life of the Land President Henry Curtis.
Distributed generation is when individuals or businesses generate relatively small amounts of power for their own use and sell any excess back to the electric company. For example, a hotel could use an oil-powered generator to heat water while generating excess electricity.
One Big Island hotel is saving $200,000 a year through a distributed generation system, Curtis said.
HECO unveiled three underground routes in May and held four meetings in June and July to gather community input.
The routes are in lieu of an overhead 138-kilovolt line on Waahila Ridge, which was opposed by several citizen groups and denied passage through state conservation lands by the state Board of Land & Natural Resources last year.
A summary of comments made at this summer's meetings was posted yesterday on HECO's Web site, www.heco.com.
"I don't think we changed a lot of minds overall, but that wasn't the purpose," HECO spokesman Peter Rosegg said.
One prevalent comment from the 177 people attending the meetings was, "Whatever you're going to do, hold the cost under control," Rosegg said.
The proposals are:
>> A 138-kilovolt line 3.6 miles from the HECO Kamoku substation on Date Street to the Pukele Substation in upper Palolo Valley. At a cost of $122 million, this project would add an estimated $2 a month to the average residential customer's monthly bill. The project would be complete in 2010.HECO has not offered a cost-benefit analysis of its proposals or told the public how likely a catastrophic outage might be, Curtis said.>> About a mile of 46-kilovolt line in Waikiki. At a cost of $41 million, this would add an estimated 70 cents a month to a residential bill. The project would be complete in 2006.
>> About a mile of underground 46-kilovolt lines in Waikiki and almost two more miles in McCully and Moiliili. At a cost of $59 million, this would add an estimated $1 a month to a residential bill. Completion would be in 2008.
Neither will be forthcoming, because that is not how an electric company operates, Rosegg said.
"What are the odds a couple of power lines in Ohio tripping out 50 million people?" he said, referring to the Aug. 14 blackout on the mainland.
