In 2004, former Governor Linda Lingle signed Hawaii’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) into law requiring state utilities to generate 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. In 2009 she increased the standard to 40 percent by 2030.
Qualifying sources include wind, solar; hydropower, biogas, including landfill and sewage-based digester gas, geothermal; ocean tidal, ocean thermal energy conversion, biomass, including biomass crops, agricultural and animal residues and wastes, and municipal solid waste and other solid waste, biofuels, and hydrogen produced from renewable energy sources.
The law also allows for certain type of “renewable electrical energy” to count towards the RPS. Renewable electric energy includes electrical energy generated using renewable energy as the source, electrical energy savings from offset technologies, including solar water heating, seawater air-conditioning district cooling systems, solar air-conditioning, and customer-sited, grid-connected renewable energy systems. After January 2015 these forms of renewable electrical energy are no longer eligible to count towards the standard.
Hawaii’s Public Utility Commission (PUC) may assess penalties for utilities that fail to comply.
In addition to the RPS, Hawaii signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Department of Energy in 2008 creating the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative. The agreement sets an ambitious goal for the state to achieve a 70 percent of the state’s energy demand with renewable energy by 2030, and transition the smaller islands completely to renewable energy.
Source: Database for State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency