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Sophie Cocke’s recent piece “Solar Farm Surprise?” beautifully pointed out much that is terribly wrong with the State’s renewable energy process, but is anyone listening, and has anyone learned
from past mistakes?

According to the story: “Hawaii’s Consumer Advocate, Jeff Ono, says information on projects and locations should be kept confidential. ‘There could be competitive advantages and disadvantages if that information
were being disclosed upfront’ he said.”

I disagree. We (and the Consumer Advocate) should be challenging why all this secrecy to
protect corporate interests is good for us consumers.

Would the system coming crashing down if Developer “A” made public its price and place and Developer “B” topped it with a better location and a lower price? Isn’t that the way the market is supposed to work?

Instead, we sit silently by while HECO asks for yet another exemption from the PUC’s required competitive bidding process. If it’s granted, how will we consumers know that we are paying the lowest possible price?

Because the Consumer Advocate says so? Not good enough.

What about consumer interests? Why is the Consumer Advocate not acting as its name implies? Hasn’t the fiasco we all know as Big-Wind-on-Lanai taught us anything about a community’s right-to-know?

For years, neither HECO nor DBEDT (the State’s Energy Office) would publicly admit where the Big Wind extension cord would land on Lanai or Molokai, or on Oahu. Millions of taxpayer dollars were spent on studies outlining various “potential routes” for this cable, while we who live here knew from the get-go exactly where the on-island destruction would occur.

“HECO spokesman Peter Rosegg says keeping the information confidential allows developers to work with communities before a project becomes generally known.”

That is corporate doublespeak for allowing a developer to insinuate its “front” people into a community to a) gauge the level of opposition and identify the leaders, and then b) divide the community by offering benefits” to those who can be bought. It is an abominable practice, given life by keeping the location information hidden.

Who is the Consumer Advocate protecting here? “Competitive advantages and disadvantages” inure to corporate developers and investors. And while the CA is busy protecting those corporate interests, the advantages and disadvantages to the host communities are left off the table for another day’s discussion. To wit: when HECO was trying to buy support for Big Wind on Lanai, it spoke glowingly of the advantages we would receive if we allowed this massively destructive example of green greed to permanently ravage and occupy one-quarter of our island.

Fortunately, very few were buying into HECO’s package. If the CA was actually advocating for the CONSUMER, it would NOT support a waiver from competitive bidding. It was just such a waiver, granted for Murdock’s inglorious Big Wind project, that allowed the state, the PUC, and yes, the Consumer Advocate, to start fast-tracking what has turned out to be an incredibly inept proposal – until the community caught on to what
was coming and started “advocating” for the community’s right to say “NO” to the planned devastation.

Instead of supporting the continued opacity of information regarding renewable energy projects, the Consumer Advocate should be an actual advocate for openness and transparency.

Or it should change its name to Corporate Advocate.

About the author: Robin Kaye is the spokesman for Friends of Lanai.

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