How should the Public Utilities Commission Regulate Hawaiian Electric Company for Better Integration of Renewable Energy?
Date: Fri, November 02, 2018
Time: 4:30pm - 6:00pm
Location: Shidler School of Business A102
Speaker: Frank A. Wolak, Director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development, Stanford University
Sponsored by UHERO, UH Sea Grant, and UH Governing Green Power
A new law directs the Hawai'i Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to enact performance-based regulation (PBR) to better incentivize renewable integration, cost control, and customer service. But what can be done that isn’t addressed in current policy? If not PBR, what kinds of rules and oversight can the PUC enact that would encourage the utility to make better use of distributed generation, storage and demand response — resources that, under current regulation, compete with HECO’s own capital investments and profit? One of the world’s leading experts in energy policy and economics will address these and other questions germane to Hawai’i’s energy future.
Frank Wolak is the Holbrook Working Professor of Commodity Price Studies in the Economics Department and Director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development of Stanford University.