Legislators plan investigation over Oahu power outage

• http://starbulletin.com/2006/10/17/news/story01.html
• http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061017/NEWS01/610170343/1001

Oahu leg­is­la­tors are pound­ing the bully pul­pit and threat­en­ing HECO with an inves­ti­ga­tion over Sunday’s power outage.

It’s an elec­tion year. Some leg­is­la­tors are afraid that vot­ers will take out their anger at the polls next month.

B.J. Reyes’ arti­cle in the Star-Bulletin does a good job of pre­sent­ing HECO’s con­cerns. I still main­tain that HECO per­formed very well dur­ing the out­age. Unlike elec­tric util­i­ties on the main­land, HECO can­not buy power from neigh­bor­ing states, or ask crews to drive in from out of town to help restore services.

Frankly, it’s amaz­ing that HECO was able to bring Oahu’s grid back to full power within 24 hours. Their dis­as­ter recov­ery plan (DRP) worked.

I really do believe that HECO did not play favorites in choos­ing which neigh­bor­hoods received power first.

Of course the hos­pi­tals, gov­ern­ment, air­ports, tele­com providers, sewage treat­ment plants and hotels received pri­or­ity. They per­form essen­tial services.

I’m embar­rassed that so many peo­ple know so lit­tle about elec­tri­cal power gen­er­a­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion. Elec­tric­ity is a ser­vice, not a right. I did my MBA intern­ship at an elec­tric util­ity, where I wrote soft­ware that sim­u­lated that company’s gen­er­a­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion capa­bil­i­ties. That expe­ri­ence left a last­ing impres­sion, and I make sure I turn off as many elec­tri­cal devices as I can before I leave my home. I don’t need to run my com­puter or fan if no one’s home.

I hope that the res­i­dents and busi­nesses who have blocked the con­struc­tion of new power plants and alter­na­tive power sources, includ­ing wind­mills and solar, will rethink their self­ish atti­tudes. Sunday’s out­age shows that HECO needs more robust gen­er­a­tion facil­i­ties that can tap a diverse array of energy sources. HECO cus­tomers will foot the bill as the com­pany invests in a stronger net­work. There are very few places on this island where a power plant can be located, and neigh­bors are just going to have to deal with it.

I was pleased to hear announce­ments on KSSK dur­ing the morn­ing regard­ing elec­tri­cal loads. I won­der how many cus­tomers took a moment to turn off their refrig­er­a­tors and elec­tric water heaters, so that the grid wouldn’t be over­whelmed when power was restored?

At the same time, I wasn’t happy to hear callers and radio announc­ers grum­bling about HECO’s “slow” per­for­mance. Some of the posts on honolulu.craigslist.com/rnr are so poorly writ­ten and full of mis­placed anger that they’re almost funny.

Oahu got through this cri­sis eas­ily when com­pared to the big island, which sus­tained at least US$40M in dam­age from the quake.