There’s a crisis of indecision occurring right now in Hawaii. It’s about something utterly boring and wonky and complicated, and it will impact every person in the state. This crisis is about Hawaii’s energy future, and how our state will reach our lofty 100 percent renewable portfolio standard goal in 2045.

And yet, despite these high stakes, few concrete decisions are being reached by stakeholders that will allow the people of Hawaii to benefit from these changes. The conversation is mired in red tape, “technical limitations,” the invisible hand and whatever other metaphor you choose to use to label what boils down to extreme analysis paralysis.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good 2,000-page energy policy paper as much as the next guy (surprisingly, not a joke). In fact, it’s what I’m going to school for right now, and what my work pays me to do. I’m a policy analyst, a paid thinker. Every two weeks some money shows up in my bank account that, in part, is paying me to read and re-read, interpret, write about and discuss these literary behemoths.

It’s truly one of the great loves of my life, after my girlfriend and rambunctious pit bull and the “tonic of wilderness” as Thoreau called it. I’m reading through HECO’s recent grid modernization plan over the weekend, and not because I have to.

And yet, at this point I feel that enough is enough. Eventually the best laid plans must be attempted and not just continually tweaked and replaced.

And here we find ourselves, perpetually trapped at a crossroads, unable to take a step forward together.

I understand full well the value of data and in-depth analysis, of a process of continued refinement. It drives my work and my education, but we must be okay with not knowing everything all at once.

In a room full of high-paid attorneys, engineers and analysts, I am the rate-payer that will be most impacted by the decisions made in that room.

An example: At our most recent Power Supply Improvement Plan Public Technical Conference we discussed the lack of data needed by some stakeholders to make a sufficient recommendation to adopt HECO’s “April Draft” of their PSIP, the plan to get us to a renewable 2045.

The assertion that sufficient data must be present to make decisions to protect all rate payers is certainly virtuous and worthwhile, but at some point we need to make a recommendation one way or another.

Here’s the truth: I am one of maybe two or three twenty-somethings that regularly participate in these meetings, representing stakeholders. In a room full of high-paid attorneys, engineers and analysts, I am the rate-payer that will be most impacted by the decisions made in that room.

I’m a renter, my girlfriend and I earn at or below the top two quintiles of average income and I certainly can’t afford to put a solar system on my house today. (Hint: I don’t own a house.) My wallet’s going to feel that higher electric rate as a result of the capital expenditure needed to build out a more modern grid and greater amounts of renewables.

But the thing is, we need this. And I’m okay with that, and I think everyone else is too.

Too Much Money On The Line

I don’t think that the most recent iteration of the PSIP is the best that we could have, and I have a feeling that it won’t be the last. Which means that we start this process over again, turn around and walk back the same way we just came.

There are a lot of brilliant folks over at HECO, but I don’t think they’re the right people for the job. Full disclosure: I don’t think any of the renewable stakeholders are either. There’s too much bias, too much money on the line for these organizations to make the right decisions.

We need to find an independent group, one that is less shackled by corporate responsibility, otherwise we’ll just keep finding ourselves back where we started.

In the meantime, the market will continue to drive development, which may or may not be in the best interests of everyone. I believe that it needs guidance and direction that only public policy and intelligent regulation can provide. We’ve all been victims of a market run amok. Even I’m old enough to remember that.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the PUC will accept HECO’s recent plan in its entirety, and maybe it’ll benefit everyone. Maybe the process that we’ve been going through for a decade works. I’m reluctant to quote the Gipper here — that is, Ronald Reagan reluctantly acknowledging the Iran Contra scandal — but it fits:  “My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.”

So this is my call to action. We already have an outstanding group of individuals, one that I’m honored to work with to bring Hawaii into the future. Let’s take that first step forward, and see where it leads us. I promise it’ll be something good.