If Hawaii Island Utility Cooperative decided to make a push at purchasing Hawaii Electric Light Co., several things would have to happen.
First and foremost, HIEC Director Marco Mangelsdorf said parent company Hawaii Electric Industries Inc. would have to be a willing seller, which it is not.
In a document filed June 1 with the Public Utilities Commission, HEI and NextEra made their position clear: “Spinning off the Maui Electric Company Limited (MECO) and Hawaii Electric Light Company Inc. (HELCO) is not something the applicants have considered or plan to consider at this time.”
MECO and HELCO, they wrote, are “integral” parts of HEI, and there is “absolutely no reason to believe that a newly formed cooperative or municipal electric department will be able to manage any portion of the Hawaiian Electric Companies’ system better than NextEra Energy can.”
Furthermore, PUC Chair Randy Iwase said HIEC would have to go through the same process Kauai Island Utility Cooperative went through when it purchased the Kauai utility, including filing a petition with the PUC, going through the process and having the commission ultimately decide that such a sale is in the best interest of the public.
So far, none of that has happened.
HIEC is one of 29 entities granted intervenor status by the PUC. The co-op has been careful not to take a position in favor of or in opposition to the proposed merger.
Mangelsdorf said that at the end of the discovery portion of the merger process — likely in August — intervenors, including his co-op, will have an opportunity to make position statements.
In a recent information request, HIEC questioned HEI and NextEra about what authority they believe the PUC has to condition the sale of HELCO to HIEC. Their answer: None.
“Neither HIEC nor any other party has submitted for commission approval a proposal to transfer ownership of Hawaii Electric Light Company to another party,” HEI and NextEra wrote. “If they did, the commission would review it in a separate proceeding and not in this proceeding. Therefore, (we) respectfully submit that it would be outside the purview of this docket to consider an alternative ownership structure for (HELCO).”
Mangelsdorf said the companies are simply stating their belief, and that doing so does not make it true.
“The PUC will do what they do,” he said. “And frequently, if they’re going to approve something, they’ll do it with various stipulations.”
David Bissell, president and CEO of Kauai Island Utility Cooperative, said the issue likely would require legal analysis, and that in most cases the PUC has very broad authority regarding docket issues.
The PUC, which still has to sign off on the proposed merger for it to go through, has set an interim deadline of Aug. 31 for all intervenor testimony to be complete.
Both the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and HEI shareholders have approved the sale.
