Hawaii’s top public utility officials and the president of Hawaiian Electric are expected to testify in a congressional hearing about the role the electrical grid played in last month’s deadly Maui wildfire.
Energy and Commerce Committee chair Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers; Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee chair Rep. Morgan Griffith; and Energy, Climate and Grid Security Subcommittee chair Rep. Jeff Duncan — all Republicans — questioned Kimura, Asuncion and Glick about the cause of the fire in a letter sent Aug. 30.efforts to mitigate fire risks
In written testimony provided to the committee before the hearing, Kimura focused on the challenges of providing electricity on an isolated island chain, and her feelings of responsibility and connection with the people of Hawaii. She did not discuss any fire mitigation efforts the utility has taken or provide new details about the events surrounding the fire.
Hawaiian Electric serves about 70,000 customers on Maui and nearly half a million customers statewide, including the Department of Defense, which is its largest customer.Kimura has acknowledged that, but she wrote that the fire department said it extinguished that blaze and that the lines had been de-energized for more than six hours when the fire flared up in the same area again. She called the 3 p.m. blaze the “Afternoon Fire,” implying it was separate from the morning blaze.
The switch was designed to help the utility commission to determine whether it was functioning as intended by creating “stringent oversight mechanisms,” and allowed the commission to penalize Hawaiian Electric for poor reliability. It also was intended to give Hawaiian Electric more flexibility to manage funds in the way the company thinks will best meet objectives, Asuncion wrote.
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