STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2636

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2934

       S.D. 2

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2014

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2934, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO RENEWABLE ENERGY,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to authorize the Public Utilities Commission to establish community-based renewable energy tariffs by which electric utility customers may own portions of a renewable energy facility that sells energy to the utility.

     Your Committee received written comments in support of the measure from Hawaiian Electric Company, Blue Planet Foundation, Inter-Island Solar Supply, and one individual.  The Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Division of Consumer Advocacy, Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism, and Public Utilities Commission submitted written comments on the measure.

     Your Committee finds that properly designed community-based renewable tariffs have the potential to provide significant energy cost-savings to a large segment of the community that has not been able to directly participate in the clean energy economy.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by clarifying that the term tariff applies to a renewable energy facility without respect to the physical siting or interconnection of that renewable energy facility.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2934, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2934, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

____________________________

DAVID Y. IGE, Chair