HECO execs brief lawmakers on wildfire mitigation efforts

A Hawaiian Electric Co. senior vice president told lawmakers Friday the company has invested $120 million this year on “wildfire safety and resiliency measures.”

Jason Benn, who’s also HECO’s chief transformation and administrative officer, told a joint briefing of the committees on Commerce and Consumer Protection, Public Safety and Military Affairs, and Energy, Economic Development and Tourism that the power utility anticipates spending another $300 million over the next three years to reduce the risks of a wildfires such as those that killed more than 100 people on Maui on Aug. 8, 2023.

Benn told the hearing that HECO won’t burden ratepayers with increases to pay its $2 billion share of a $4 billion settlement they, the state and Maui County announced in August they’d reached to resolve hundreds of lawsuits stemming from last year’s wildfires on the Valley Isle.

”While there are still some issues being resolved in the court … our company and our shareholders are paying for it, and we have already taken steps to finance it, as evidenced by the recent sale of more than $500 million in stock, which will be used to pay the first of four planned installments,” he said. “… Cost to customers is always top of mind, and we continue to aggressively pursue federal grants and loans to offset the impacts to our customers and communities.”

Benn and Colton Ching, the senior vice president of planning and technology who’s leading the development of HECO’s wildfire safety strategy — which the utility has been ordered to file in January with the Public Utilities Commission — said the $120 million outlay represents about a third of this year’s budget for the utility.

“We’ve had to make some tough choices on other important things that we do at Hawaiian Electric to be able to afford this $120 million,” Ching said. “But this is how important this is to reduce this risk as quickly as possible.”

Ching said HECO’s management believes operational changes and procedures adopted since those fires — as well as fires in West Hawaii that damaged or destroyed seven structures — have “reduced wildfire risk of ignitions caused by utility infrastructure by 60% … of what we estimate the level of risk to have been prior to the Maui wildfires.”

Ching said the mitigation plan will contain improvements under four areas.

The first is “foundational work.” That includes: company specific risk maps, with color codes for higher risk areas; more current inspections of poles, lines, etc.; vegetation management, which includes more frequent trimming around lines and poles, and removal of trouble species, such as albizia and eucalyptus trees in certain areas; and equipment upgrades including sparkless fuses and lightning arresters.

The second category is “operational work,” which includes relay upgrades and power shutoffs for public safety when deemed necessary.

The third is “situational awareness,” which includes the installation of video cameras with AI and compact weather stations at strategic locations.

The fourth is “grid hardening.” That includes regular replacement of wooden poles; replacing copper conductors with aluminum and ensuring those conductors are insulated; and the moving of some power lines underground.

The moving of power lines underground is an extremely expensive proposition, Ching told lawmakers.

“We are developing a wildfire safety strategy … to set the course of the efforts that we want to prioritize over the next three years,” he said. “But longterm, beyond the three-year period … we’re setting a target to reduce wildfire risks on the five islands that we serve by a total of 80%.”

Benn said the costs of the improvements identified have been “offset by $95 million in federal funding grants that we’ve received.”

“We know that we can’t do it alone,” he said. “While we’re proud of the leadership we’ve demonstrated, we’re grateful for the partnerships we’ve built to address wildfire risk as a whole of society issue. Today, there is an unprecedented collaborative effort underway by many people in Hawaii — utilities, landowners, government agencies, first responders, neighborhood organizers, private business, academia and dozens of nonprofits like the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization.

”… We are developing simpler legislation designed to ensure expedited relief for property owners in the event of a future catastrophic wildfire, while providing our investors the necessary confidence to finance essential utility investments with safety, resiliency, reliability and clean energy at the lowest possible cost of capital to our customers.

“One of our rating agencies recently spelled it out. ‘Long-term credit improvement and stability for HECO depends on legislative and regulatory outcomes that support their financial health and efforts to enhance wildfire safety.’”

Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.