Rising electricity and gasoline costs were the main drivers of an increase in consumer prices in Honolulu during the first half of this year.

Honolulu’s Consumer Price Index rose 2.8 percent during the January-through-June period compared with the same six months a year earlier, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Honolulu’s increase was larger than the 2.5 percent average increase in consumer prices among 10 cities surveyed by the bureau. However it represented a slowing from Honolulu’s 3.7 percent inflation for all of 2011.

The sharpest increase in the basket of goods used to calculate the index was electricity prices, which rose 16.8 percent during the first half of 2012 from a year earlier. Gasoline was next with a 7.6 percent jump. The rise in energy prices accounted for one-quarter of the overall increase in Honolulu’s index. Other categories ranged from a 0.9 percent increase in shelter costs to a 4.5 percent rise in food and beverage.

The rise in electricity prices is largely due to increases in the price of fuel oil paid by the state’s two electric utilities, Hawaiian Electric Co. and the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative. The price of low sulfur fuel oil, the main type of fuel burned by HECO, rose to $144.73 a barrel in June, a 15 percent increase from the same month a year earlier.

Randall Tsuneyoshi, a retired federal government employee from Mililani, said the increase in electricity and gas prices has been tough to handle because both are essential commodities. Tsuneyoshi said he relies on his pension and income from his wife’s part-time job at Hawaiian Airlines to pay the bills.

"I’m on a fixed income and I’m thinking, ‘What am I going to do.’ I’ll have to adjust the budget and somehow pay it off,’" he said.

Tsuneyoshi said his electric bill spiked to $500 during a recent month when one of his sons came to visit with his wife and two children. At the same time his bimonthly water bill of $450 was due. "That’s 950 bucks. With the water bill it’s killing us."

Except for rising energy costs, overall inflation in Honolulu is not particularly worrisome, said Carl Bonham, executive director of the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization. UHERO is forecasting inflation of 3 percent in 2012, 2.5 percent in 2013 and 2.9 percent in 2014.

"A 2.8 percent inflation rate eats into your purchasing power but it’s not out of the ordinary when you look at rates historically," Bonham said. During the last economic boom the Consumer Price Index averaged above 4 percent from 2005 through 2007, he said.

"We expect to see the inflation rate continue to ease through the rest of this year as energy prices stabilize," Bonham said.

The latest inflation figure is about what one would expect given the current state of the economy, said Leroy Laney, professor of finance and economics at Hawaii Pacific University.

"Inflation is not a big story now. In terms of our recovery from the recession and the state of the overall economy nobody’s worried about it either locally or nationally, including at the Federal Reserve. It should be a while before inflation picks up. It’s really off the radar screen."

As for retiree Tsuneyoshi, he said he’s doing what he can to reduce his household costs in areas where he has some control. That includes growing many of the fruits and vegetables that his family eats.

Among the items Tsuneyoshi grows in the backyard of his 10,750-square-foot lot are bananas, oranges, mountain apples, dragon fruit, avocados, cucumbers, bitter melons and sweet potatoes.

In addition to reducing his grocery bill, Tsuneyoshi said the homegrown produce has other benefits. "It’s good for my health because I have diabetes," he said.