Establishing a voice for community in energy planning
by Lauren Ballesteros-Watanabe, Chapter Organizer | Reading time: 4.25 minutes
Throughout 2023, the Public Utilities Commission set out on a journey to “investigate how to better integrate equity and justice considerations across commission proceedings and the commission’s work more broadly,” via the Energy Equity and Justice docket.
We all know that Hawaiʻi has the highest electricity rates in the nation. What isn’t questioned enough is the fundamental injustice of a privately run centralized system that exacerbates land use and resource tensions, commodifying access to a human right. However, through this historical docket, solution-oriented conversations around existing issues are beginning to emerge.
Initially, the commission planned to work on four tracks as part of the proceeding: energy affordability and direct payment assistance; equitable access to clean energy; utility business model reforms; and procedural equity improvements. However, soon after its initial plan, the PUC added a fifth track, focused on the siting of new energy projects as well as the harms posed to communities that currently host certain energy infrastructure. This enabled a sobering conversation in meeting #2 with Sunny Unga, President of the Kahuku Community Association, reminding the audience of the ongoing injustice Kahuku faces and how energy can divide communities for generations.
As intervenors on this docket represented by Earthjustice, alongside Blue Planet, the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi is a “party” to the docket with a significant role in providing comments and issuing requests for information from the utility and commission. If that all sounds completely unfamiliar to you; the PUC did a great job of outlining procedural processes and participation in their opening conference.
From the start, the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi has been striving to create a consent-based project development model that allows for community residents on the frontlines of energy infrastructure to have a direct say in shaping their energy future. As a member of the statewide Energy Equity Hui, on January 22nd we were able to present some of our long standing ideas around a Community Energy Board and the fundamental urgency around decentralized energy, democratized decision-making, and consent-based project development. These ideas were presented in our shared letter with the request for proposal (RFP) workstream hui, which is a mix of public and private agencies with some community members of Waiaʻanae.
Community energy boards would be an entity of diverse community members that would serve as key decision-makers and an oversight entity to the contracted community planning company and utility throughout the RFP and development process. Boards on each island are ideal with members chosen based on regional demographics with special consideration of areas dealing with a disproportionate impact of energy burden. Community Energy Boards could also serve as a mutual learning community-based education forum through partnerships with technical experts and the utility, similar to the Molokaʻi Clean Energy Hui.
Establishing a community energy board will not solve all the injustices community members have raised in our existing system, but we do believe it is a great start with:
Impacted communities having a seat at the table.
Embedding transparency and community values and concerns throughout the entirety of the development process.
Infrastructure design informed by place-based knowledge and cultural respect.
Holistic and long-term consideration of renewable energy sources chosen and broader socio-economic impacts.
Proactive, collaborative, and solution-oriented platform.
Although such a board is novel in the energy sector, Hawaiʻi does have over 170 existing boards, commissions, and committees that can serve as models. Marti Townsend, Earthjustice Regional Engagement Specialist and former Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi Chapter Director, gave a wide range of models from the Commission on Water Resource Management to the Red Hill Community Representation Initiative to Burial Councils to Molokaʻi’s Clean Energy Hui. The key components being community driven bodies with infrastructure support and technical expertise provided by public and private entities.
Since project siting and land use tensions is a desperately needed overhaul in energy planning, we offered the following ideas in order to ensure justice and equity are embedded in system design. That looks like planning for energy the way we do water, both being public trust resources. Check out the full RFP Co-creation and Community Energy Board presentation on the PUC’s website!
On February 21, the PUC held its final public meeting which was a presentation of their staff report on the previous meetings and feedback from participants. Although the Community Energy Board has been identified as a long-term solution, we are deeply grateful that the PUC is taking this transformative approach seriously stating “Community energy boards could provide unique community insight on project or RFP decisions with important tradeoffs, where the implications might not be readily apparent to regulators or utilities. Community energy boards could host community meetings with agendas and notes, coordinate project site visits, educate community members, host listening sessions, and create a forum for determining and distributing community-led benefits packages.” Since the PUC does not have exact jurisdiction on establishing a board via statute, they did recommend piloting the board in existing dockets such as the Integrated Grid Planning docket where Hawaiian Electric is identifying “renewable energy zones.”
If any of this captures your interest, you can catch up by watching and reviewing previous meetings held on the PUC’s energy equity and justice docket website!