ELP Student Rachel James ’19 won the Hawaii State Bar Association Environment, Energy, and Resources Section Award for best Second Year Seminar Paper (SYS) on an Environmental Law Topic. Her paper, “Energy Justice in Hawaii: A Review of the Proposed Framework for Community Based Renewable Energy,” was selected from Summer 2017 and Spring 2018 SYS papers.
Rachel plans to use her award money to fund a trip to Mali in November where she has been invited to present her paper at the 2nd World Community Power Conference. She is also raising funds through Go Fund Me.
Congratulations, Rachel!
Abstract:
Today, Hawai’i is undergoing a radical shift in energy policy, catalyzed by bold directives established in the Public Utility Commission’s 2014 Inclinations. Subsequently, in 2015, the Hawai’i State Legislature charged the public utility and the Public Utility Commission with revamping the state’s energy generation ecosystem, shifting from one based almost entirely on fossil fuel resources to one that is reliant on renewable energy resources and focused on providing customer choice options to various types of users across the electrical island grids. Out of this direction came Act 100, which required the establishment of the Community Based Renewable Energy Program (CBRE).
The CBRE program is one of a number of customer choice options offered by Hawaii’s utilities and is focused specifically on providing an option for underserved utility customers to engage in and benefit from the development of renewable energy projects. Historically however, energy development has not broadly engaged community members at the onset of planning and so communities are by and large minimally informed about the opportunities that renewable energy development may afford them. The proposed CBRE framework, while well intended, can still be better informed by an improved community engagement strategy, specifically one that engages beyond customer choice and is truly focused on community voice.
While the current proposed CBRE framework does not explicitly state that engaging community voice is paramount, the directives identified in the Inclinations and the establishment of the third party Subscriber Organization element of the CBRE framework provide an new opportunity in Hawaii. The timing is ripe for community leaders and members to advocate for a CBRE engagement strategy grounded in the ideals of Energy Justice. An approach necessary to ensure Community Based Renewable Energy is in fact Community Based.
MS 9/19/18