Energy
What do families in Hawaiʻi use electricity for?
By Nori Tarui and Pratistha Gyawali IntroductionThe dashboard illustrates Hawaiʻi’s residential electricity usage based on the 2019 Residential Energy Use Survey, a residential appliance saturation survey conducted by Hawaiian Electric Company. UHERO applied the conditional demand analysis (CDA), which is a statistical method to estimate average annual consumption associated with each appliance based on survey […]
Read MoreUsing Temperature Sensitivity to Estimate Shiftable Electricity Demand Implications for power system investments and climate change
Growth of intermittent natural hazard resilience make it increasingly difficult to manage electricity demand variability. Transmission and centralized storage technologies can help, but are costly. An alternative to centralized storage is to make better use of shiftable demand, but it is unclear how much shiftable demand exists. A significant share of electricity demand is used […]
Read MoreThe Effects of Utility Revenue Decoupling on Electricity Prices
Revenue decoupling (RD) is a regulatory mechanism that allows adjustments of retail electricity rates for the regulated utility to recover its required revenue despite fluctuations in its sales volume. The U.S. utility data in 2000–2019 reveals that RD is associated with about a 4-percentage point higher growth rate of residential electricity prices within the first year after […]
Read MoreEnergy Economics: Lessons for and from the Philippines
By Jim Roumasset This is to share some recent energy research from the Philippines. Some of the findings have relevance for other small economies such as Hawaii. Green GDP and environmental taxationMany governments, including those in the Philippines and the U.S. declare that their mission is to promote the general welfare. It is well known […]
Read MoreAre We Hitting Our Targets? A Look at Hawai‘i’s GHG Emissions
By Makena Coffman, Maja Schjervheim, and Paul Bernstein Over the past three years, the State of Hawai‘i Department of Health has released a Hawai‘i Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report. This year’s report added an inventory for 2017, as well as projections through 2030 based on existing policies and trends. UHERO collaborated with ICF on this project and […]
Read MoreIs a Carbon Tax Viable for a Small Island Economy?
By Maja Schjervheim, Paul Bernstein, Sumner La Croix, Makena Coffman, and Sherilyn Hayashida For the third year in a row, a carbon tax bill fizzled out at the Hawaiʻi State Legislature. Perhaps it was the difficult timing of introducing a new tax in the wake of a pandemic. Perhaps it was due to qualms regarding […]
Read MoreImplications of a “Green Tariff” for the University of Hawai‘i, Hawaiian Electric Company, and other Customers
In June 2015 the State passed a law setting a goal for the University of Hawai‘i (UH) to produce as much renewable energy as the total energy it consumes; that is, to become net-zero. The great bulk of the University’s energy use occurs on the Mānoa campus, which has the most students and by far […]
Read MoreRooftop solar is now competitive with utility-scale power in Hawaiʻi
By Michael Roberts We need to transition away from fossil fuels quickly, and with inexpensive renewables and batteries, we can do so in a cost effective manner, so long as we employ a sensible plan and the right policies. But what are the tradeoffs involved with how we do it? In most places, rooftop solar […]
Read MoreEV driver characteristics: Evidence from Hawaii
Electric vehicles (EVs) offer an opportunity to dramatically decrease greenhouse gas emissions within the transport sector if fueled by renewable energy. Hawaii had been early-on considered an ideal place to launch new EVs because of the limited driving range of its island geography. Though it ranks second in new EV registrations per capita in the […]
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