HONOLULU (KHON2) — Oahu has seen a wave of recent power outages. A couple of weeks ago the whole island was put on alert after a power plant went offline amid a storm causing rolling blackouts.
Hawaii State Senate Energy, Economic Development, and Tourism Vice Chair Glenn Wakai stopped by Wake Up 2Day Wednesday morning with some insight on how we can improve our grid.
Hawaii’s electric costs are 62% higher than the national average and double the global average. How do we make this transition and keep costs in check?
“From an energy policy standpoint there are three R’s, it’s reliability make sure the lights go on when I flip the switch,” Sen. Wakai said. “Second is reasonable, the prices in Hawaii are three times the national average we pay 42 cents per kilowatt hour in Hawaii, on the mainland it’s like 12-14 cents. The third thing is renewable and we saw that we don’t have reliability the most important aspect of the three R’s we don’t have reliability with intermittent because we’re at the mercy of mother nature.”