Shining a Light on Utility Performance in Hawaii’s Clean Energy Transition

The document details the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission's (PUC) adoption of a performance-based regulation (PBR) framework featuring nearly 40 metrics and scorecards for Hawaiian Electric. It argues that PBR helps overcome traditional 'cost of service' regulatory incentives that hinder clean energy investments. The brief provides three primary lessons: the value of using non-financial scorecards for emergent outcomes like transportation electrification and customer equity, the necessity of using proxies and iterative analysis when precise data is unavailable (such as for LMI Energy Burden), and the importance of diverse stakeholder engagement to ensure a comprehensive portfolio of performance mechanisms.

• The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission (PUC) approved a PBR portfolio consisting of nearly 40 metrics and scorecards to increase transparency and hold Hawaiian Electric accountable for social and policy goals.
• Publicly reported metrics and scorecards can motivate utility improvement in emergent areas—such as customer engagement, customer equity, and transportation electrification—even when insufficient data exists to design financial performance incentive mechanisms (PIMs).
• To address the lack of precise data for low- to moderate-income (LMI) energy burden, the PUC utilized proxies, including 150 percent of the Hawaii Federal Poverty Limit for income and average electricity bills or typical consumption estimates for expenditures.
• When historical data is missing for target setting, targets can be anchored by policy goals, utility commitments (such as the Fleet Electrification Scorecard), planning assumptions, or peer utility performance.

APA

RMI (2022). Shining a Light on Utility Performance in Hawaii’s Clean Energy Transition. https://rmi.org/resources/shining-a-light-on-utility-performance-in-hawaii/

Chicago

RMI. Shining a Light on Utility Performance in Hawaii’s Clean Energy Transition. 2022. https://rmi.org/resources/shining-a-light-on-utility-performance-in-hawaii/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Shining a Light on Utility Performance in Hawaii’s Clean Energy Transition |date=7 April 2022 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/shining-a-light-on-utility-performance-in-hawaii/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2022shining, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Shining a Light on Utility Performance in Hawaii’s Clean Energy Transition}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2022}, month = apr, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/shining-a-light-on-utility-performance-in-hawaii/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }