Original Story – Hawaiʻi at the Vanguard of Renewable Energy
This story was first published by Capital & Main. When arriving at Honolulu’s international airport, visitors may notice rows of suburban rooftops decorated with solar panels. Upon arrival, they can hail an electric vehicle driven by an Uber driver. As they navigate the town’s west side, they can observe the elevated Skyline, Hawaiʻi’s contentious electric-powered light rail.
This island, like many others in the Pacific Ocean, is on the front lines of climate change. However, unlike most others, it is leading the decarbonization of the most oil-dependent U.S. state.
In 2015, Hawaiʻi became the first state to require electric utilities to generate power almost entirely from renewable energy and to mandate that the economy make huge progress in leaving carbon-based fuels behind by 2045. This was a considerable challenge in a state that historically produced the majority of its electricity from oil and coal, along with heavy consumption of gasoline and airplane fuel.
Despite the challenges, Hawaiʻi is making progress. The state leads the nation in the amount of rooftop solar installed per person and is on track to hit a 2030 milestone by generating 40 percent of its electricity from renewables, drastically different from 20 years earlier, when about 90 percent came from burning petroleum and coal.
Hawaiʻi also ranks third for the adoption of electric vehicles and has shut down its last remaining coal plant in 2022. Hawaiʻi’s largest private utility, Hawaiian Electric, cautioned that reaching an interim target of cutting fossil-fuel emissions in half across the state by 2030 will be challenging. This is partially because gas-powered vehicles and machinery won’t suddenly vanish.
Hawaii is still struggling to decarbonize the transportation sector as the gas-guzzling Toyota Tacoma remains the best-selling car on the islands. The state’s greenhouse gas emissions are higher than those of 85% of countries on Earth. The state’s energy sector was responsible for about 88% of these emissions. Considerable work is needed to reduce these numbers.
While Hawaiʻi’s transition is not without its difficulties, rooftops solar has been declared a significant success capturing the public’s imagination of what’s possible. Policymakers have hoped that lower-cost production from wind and solar would reduce electricity costs, although that theory has yet to become a reality, and no one is sure when it will.
The push to decarbonize island power grids with large-scale renewable generation and energy storage will help stabilize costs and reduce dependency on oil prices. Hawaiʻi’s clean energy transition is at a crossroads as weather catastrophes attributed to climate change multiply. The islands face numerous challenges as they attempt to lead the decarbonization and renewable energy revolution.
