STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2610

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2822

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2024

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Energy, Economic Development, and Tourism and Government Operations, to which was referred S.B. No. 2822 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO ENERGY,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to August 1, 2024, require the Public Utilities Commission to open a docket and set a procedural schedule to determine whether, and by which rules, the Department of Accounting and General Services may engage in wheeling of electricity that is produced by renewable energy sources from their own facilities over existing transmission lines, subject to certain restrictions.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Accounting and General Services; Blue Planet Foundation; Hawaii Solar Energy Association, Inc.; and Hawaii Clean Power Alliance.

Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs; Hawaiian Electric; and Ulupono Initiative, LLC.

Your Committees find that the production of clean electricity may be encouraged if certain government agencies, as sellers of clean electricity, are authorized to engage in intragovernmental wheeling, or the transmittal of electric power from one power generation facility to another facility over the existing transmission lines of a third-party electric public utility. Your Committees further find that the Public Utilities Commission's failure to open and move a docket on wheeling for state facilities has hindered the State's ability to share and distribute the electricity generated amongst its facilities. This measure authorizes intragovernmental wheeling, which provides multiple benefits for the State's electrical grid, clean energy power producers, and the State's taxpayers.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Energy, Economic Development, and Tourism and Government Operations that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2822 and recommend that it pass Second Reading and be referred to your Committees on Commerce and Consumer Protection and Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Energy, Economic Development, and Tourism and Government Operations,

________________________________ ANGUS L.K. MCKELVEY, Chair

________________________________ LYNN DECOITE, Chair