The state Public Utilities Commission presented its arguments on Friday about why the NextEra Energy Inc. merger ultimately would not play out well for Hawaii ratepayers. The Florida-based company, which has been seeking for the last 19 months to purchase Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc., simply did not do enough to persuade regulators that its benefits for the state’s power customers were rock-solid.
That is unfortunate, because in making this decision, the PUC commis-
sioners had to swallow hard. There is a loss in rejecting the $4.3 billion deal, and it is that HEI utilities — Hawaiian Electric Co., Maui Electric Co. and the Big Island’s Hawaii Electric Light Co. — are watching a lot of capital walk out the door.
This is capital that could have helped propel the state’s largest provider of electric power with the immense resources necessary for transformation.
HEI’s outdated systems should be replaced with a next-generation grid to distribute energy from a range of small and large producers.
But what was never clear in its bid was that NextEra was willing to change its top-down business model enough to reach the state’s enacted goal: supplying its power needs entirely through renewable energy sources. Hawaii is uniquely endowed with a wealth of such alternatives, and it surely merited greater creativity from NextEra’s proposals.
The principals in the case could seek a reconsideration of the decision, or even appeal it to the Hawaii Supreme Court. NextEra, based in Juno Beach, Fla., also could return with a plan that firms up its promises of ratepayer savings and green-energy agendas.
But for now, the onus is on HEI to revise its blueprints for the future, mapping out how it can achieve transformation without the capital infusion of its would-be owner.
Further, state elected officials, many of whom have criticized the NextEra bid, now must provide leadership on the search for an alternate pathway forward.
To summarize a few of the commission’s points of contention:
>> NextEra had proposed that Hawaii ratepayers would benefit directly through $60 million in rate credits. These credits take the form of savings on their electric bills, spread out over a four-year moratorium against rate increases.
The PUC pointed out that this “conditional guarantee” was not irrevocable and thus was not much of a guarantee. And ratepayers would have to wait for most of the savings, because the credits were concentrated in the later years of that moratorium, which could be canceled before all the benefits were paid out.
>> The utility could continue to recover its capital expenses through a tariff assessed to ratepayers that could partially or entirely offset the rate credits.
>> NextEra claimed the deal would yield substantial “derivative benefits” for the state economy but, according to the PUC, “failed to provide specific quantifications or analytical methods to support their projected benefit of $496.1 million.”
>> The commission wasn’t convinced that the company’s new governance structure would give Hawaii-based executives the position they needed to serve as advocates for island ratepayers.
>> Insufficient protection was provided to insulate Hawaii ratepayers against the risk of bankruptcy due to NextEra actions beyond local control.
In other words: There was a severe trust deficit here.
Those who supported the deal would say there is generally some background-level of distrust when control of businesses is shifted off-island. Some would describe this as an element in Hawaii’s infamous “poor business climate.”
More accurately, however, it represents a rational concern that, as a relatively small and captive market, Hawaii consumers have interests that could be lost in the larger corporate considerations.
NextEra should have understood that, and should have provided firmer assurances that the ratepayer costs would, in fact, go down. Those costs are a major headache, after all. Hawaii’s electric bills are the highest in the nation, and NextEra promised to lower them by about $70 a year, for the average customer, over the next five years.
That simply was not enough to persuade opponents of the sale, including Gov. David Ige, who worried about what would be lost in the bargain. They believed a conventional centralized utility would not accommodate enough rooftop solar and other independent generators of power.
They also doubted whether a company such as NextEra would meet goals of 100 percent renewable energy, pointing to plans to use liquefied natural gas in its plants. But so far, no one’s stepped forward with a fully developed roadmap to reach those goals, either.
“This ruling gives us a chance to reset and refocus on our goal of achieving 100 percent renewable energy by 2045,” the governor said in a statement after Friday’s decision.
Hawaii now awaits Ige’s ideas, and those from other clean-energy champions, on how to make that possible in a post-NextEra age.
