Hawaii has a one-year deadline to ditch coal. Can it keep the lights on?
Kylie Wager Cruz, Attorney, Mid-Pacific Office, Earthjustice: “HECO had a long time to begin planning for what the transition would look like.”
A solar panel installation in Hawaii.
Hawai'i is fast providing the entire nation with a framework for a clean energy future.
Earthjustice is helping renewable energy get a strong foothold and move the Aloha State to 100% clean energy.
Hawaiʻi is blessed with abundant sun and wind, but the state has historically relied on imported oil for virtually all of its energy needs. In recent years, rooftop solar has become a potential “game changer” for Hawaiʻi’s energy independence, and Earthjustice is working to clear the path for clean energy to become a major part of the future grid.
For more than a decade, Earthjustice has been representing local solar industry and clean energy organizations in a series of legal actions and proceedings that are determining the state’s energy direction for decades to come, including:
Kylie Wager Cruz, Attorney, Mid-Pacific Office, Earthjustice: “HECO had a long time to begin planning for what the transition would look like.”
Kylie Wager Cruz, Attorney, Mid-Pacific Office: "We strongly supported shutting down the coal plant. That facility needed to go. What we do with that loss of capacity is the key question."
Isaac Moriwake, Managing Attorney, Mid-Pacific Office, Earthjustice: “This is a first installment of the next big wave of rooftop solar and battery storage.”
Interview with Kylie Wager Cruz, Attorney, Mid-Pacific Office, Earthjustice
Kylie Wager Cruz, Attorney, Mid-Pacific Office, Earthjustice: "HECO should take responsibility for the crisis it's caused and focus on ensuring [the project] realizes its full potential to maximize renewable energy on the grid and minimize Hawai'i's dependence on fossil fuels. Instead, HECO's threatening to pull the plug on the project, put all the risk on ratepayers and the grid, and make us pay for all of it either way."