https://twitter.com/RealSpikeCohen/status/1692415162702053651
Hawaiian Electric focused obsessively on renewable energy while only spending $245,000 on wildfire safety
- Hawaiian Electric knew about the threat of wildfires but waited for years to act
- They focused energy on renewables - only investing $245,000 on wildfire safety
- The company said it would investigate any role its infrastructure may have played in the Maui wildfires and would cooperate with a separate probe
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-energy-spending-245-000-wildfire-safety.html
[archive link:
https://archive.li/RKbel]
Aneeta Bhole (17 August 2023)
Hawaii's largest electricity supplier prioritized its pursuit of renewable energy over wildfire prevention, regulatory filings show.
[...]
Hawaiian Electric, which provides power to 95 percent of locals, concluded during the 2019 wildfires that it needed to do more to prevent its power lines from emitting sparks.
It vowed to conduct drone surveys to identify areas vulnerable to wildfires and determine how to help keep residents and infrastructure safe.
But four years later, very little had followed and only $245,000, between 2019 and 2022, had been invested on wildfire-specific projects on the island,
The Wall Street Journal reported, citing regulatory filings.
[...]
Though the cause of the blaze is still unclear, Hawaiian Electric is facing a bulk of the scrutiny for not shutting down power lines when high winds created dangerous fire conditions.
[...]
Lahaina residents in one of the lawsuits claimed Hawaiian Electric is responsible for the fires after failing to shut off power lines despite warnings from the National Weather Service that high winds could blow those lines down and spark fast-spreading wildfires.
Several reports have surfaced detailing allegations that the company's failure to maintain its grid properly resulted in the disaster. Videos have also surfaced on Facebook which purport to show powerlines entangled with overgrown trees and vegetation.
Footage of a powerline downed during a storm has also emerged in the wake of the tragedy.
A video, captured at the Maui Bird Conservation Center, near Makawao, appears to show a bright flash in the woods at the exact time ten sensors recorded a significant incident in Hawaiian Electric's grid on August 7.
While the Makawao fire had nothing to do with
the inferno that devastated the historic town of Lahaina, it was the first of several reported on Maui on August 7.
Whisker Labs, a company that uses a sensor network to monitor electric grids across the United States, told
she Washington Post the bright light was probably an 'arc flash,' which happens when a power line 'faults.'
'This is strong confirmation — based on real data — that utility grid faults were likely the ignition source for multiple wildfires on Maui,' Bob Marshall, the founder and CEO of Whisker Labs, told
The Washington Post.
PG&E, the Northern California utility giant, sought bankruptcy protection in 2019 after power lines ignited a series of major fires.
[...]
Despite vowing not to make the same mistake as PG&E, Hawaiian Electric took years to take significant action on wildfires and during that period had focused their attention on a state-mandated shift to renewables.
The risk of wildfires has been known for years with 39,000 acres scorched in 2019 compared to 150 in 1999, according to data compiled by the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization.
[...]
In 2018, Hurricane Lane helped fuel fires that burned more than 2,000 acres on Maui, the year after, 9,000 acres were reduced to ash prompting hundreds of evacuations.
At the back of the 2019 fires, Hawaiian Electric released a statement saying it would install heavier, insulated conductors on Maui and Oahu to minimize the risk of sparks when winds picked up.
It added that it would install technology to detect disruptions when the conductors came into contact with vegetation or each other.
It also said it would apply fire retardant on poles in risky areas and consider installing cameras and other devices to monitor weather conditions during fire season.
Over the next two years, filings with the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission, which approves utility projects and spending, only heard of wildfire mitigation in passing.
Mina Morita, who chaired the state utilities commission from 2011 to 2015 said while 'there was concern for wildfire risk, politically, the focus was on electricity generation.'
[...]
'Looking back with hindsight, the business opportunities were on the generation side, and the utility was going out for bid with all these big renewable-energy projects,' he told WSJ.
'But in retrospect, it seems clear, we weren't as focused on these fire risks as we should have been.'
A 2020 management audit found [...] that the division which oversaw power line operations had 'significant management problems.'
[...]
