Abercrombie: Hawaii Second In Nation for Energy Savings Per Capita
Hawaii’s at the top of the pack when it comes to energy savings per capita, Gov. Neil Abercrombie says.
In a of his first year, he says:
“Did you know Hawaii is second in the nation in photovoltaic capacity and energy savings per capita? that the state ranks second in the nation for energy savings per person.”
Calculating savings is tricky.
The governor’s spokeswoman, Donalyn Dela Cruz, told Civil Beat that by energy savings, Abercrombie meant the reduction in the amount of oil that Hawaii is dependent upon as well as cost savings. (Read a separate fact check that evaluates the photovoltaic assertion.)
To verify the savings claim, Dela Cruz, pointed Civil Beat to a report on energy efficiency. We also spoke with the state energy office and Hawaii Energy, the state’s energy conservation and efficiency program.
Dela Cruz referred Civil Beat to from the Energy Services Coalition showing that Hawaii ranked first — not second — in the country for the amount of money the state had invested in energy efficiency per capita. The data traces back to 1996.
She said that “we now need to correct it — we are not second, we are first.”
She is correct on that score. But the data she cites doesn’t pertain to energy savings. It looks at how much the state government has invested in energy efficiency contracts for such things as retrofitting lighting and appliances in buildings. (Indeed, Hawaii has excelled in this area, spending $117 per capita. That’s 3.7 times the national average.)
Civil Beat then contacted the state energy office and Hawaii Energy to see if they had data to support Abercrombie’s claim.
Hawaii Energy said that it wasn’t the source of the data on which the governor based his statement. But Michael Chang, Hawaii Energy’s deputy program manager, did pull a study from the that shows that nationally, Hawaii came in second — behind Vermont and Nevada which tied — in electricity savings in 2009. This is the latest data available. (Abercrombie took office at the end of 2010.)
Hawaii reduced its energy consumption by about 1 percent, according to the report. Chang said the data was well documented, but pointed out that other factors such as cooler temperatures and downturns in the economy can reduce electricity use.
Mark Glick, head of the state energy office, was hard-pressed to come up with data supporting the governor’s claim.
“Honestly, I don’t see in our data anything where we’ve captured something about overall energy savings per capita,” he said.
But he added that the data on the contracting dollars going to energy savings from the Energy Services Coalition that Dela Cruz pointed to was a “pretty big deal.”
“We were competing with some really major states,” he said. “We’ve basically blown past them.”
Bottom line: Calculating energy savings for the whole state is difficult. There are studies that rank Hawaii high for energy efficiency. However, neither the governor’s office nor state energy officials could produce any report that ranks the state second in the nation for per capita energy savings. Hawaii Energy presented the most relevant data on how much Hawaii was saving on electricity, but it’s for 2009, before Abercrombie took office.
