The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has turned down a $4.3-billion takeover of its state electric company that would have triggered a 20-year contract to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) from British Columbia.
“It’s a rejection of B.C.’s core argument for LNG: this notion that it’s somehow a useful step in the transition to renewables,” said Kevin Washbrook, director of Voters Taking Action on Climate Change (VTACC). “Hawaii said, ‘we’re going to skip that step and go straight to renewables.’ I think it’s a very big deal.”
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The 265-page PUC ruling rejected a move by Florida-based NextEra Energy, the biggest wind energy provider in the United States, to buy Hawaiian Electric Companies, which supplies about 95% of the state’s power. NextEra “was positioned to play a key role in financing the importing of 800,000 metric tons per year of LNG from FortisBC’s Tilbury LNG storage facility in Delta for use in an upgraded power plant on the west coast of Oahu,” DeSmog Canada reports. But “Hawaii has committed to 100% renewable energy by 2045—only four years after the LNG contract would expire—which was a major factor in the utilities commission’s decision to reject the takeover.”
The deal would have produced 26 million tonnes of carbon pollution, VTAAC estimates.
