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UHERO fellows conduct research to evaluate impacts of past and prospective energy-related policies, and engage with policymakers and stakeholders on contemporary and emerging energy issues, such as renewable energy and associated clean air goals, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, and carbon taxes.
A Comparison of State-Level Carbon Reduction Strategies: A Case Study of Hawai‘i March 16, 2023 Abstract: State-level electricity standards are proliferating and becoming more ambitious, with numerous US states adopting a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) and a small but increasing number of states participating in carbon pricing programs. The State of Hawai‘i has an ambitious RPS that requires 100% electricity generation through renewable sources by 2045. This study uses a… Read More
Real-Time Pricing and the Cost of Clean Power August 9, 2022 Solar and wind power are now cheaper than fossil fuels but are intermittent. The extra supply-side variability implies growing benefits of using real-time retail pricing (RTP). We evaluate the potential gains of RTP using a model that jointly solves investment, supply, storage, and demand to obtain a chronologically detailed dynamic equilibrium for the island of… Read More
Are We Hitting Our Targets? A Look at Hawai‘i’s GHG Emissions August 11, 2021 By Makena Coffman, Maja Schjervheim, and Paul Bernstein Over the past three years, the State of Hawai‘i Department of Health has released a Hawai‘i Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report. This year’s report added an inventory for 2017, as well as projections through 2030 based on existing policies and trends. UHERO collaborated with ICF on this project and… Read More
Is a Carbon Tax Viable for a Small Island Economy? June 17, 2021 By Maja Schjervheim, Paul Bernstein, Sumner La Croix, Makena Coffman, and Sherilyn Hayashida For the third year in a row, a carbon tax bill fizzled out at the Hawaiʻi State Legislature. Perhaps it was the difficult timing of introducing a new tax in the wake of a pandemic. Perhaps it was due to qualms regarding… Read More
Rooftop solar is now competitive with utility-scale power in Hawaiʻi October 2, 2020 By Michael Roberts We need to transition away from fossil fuels quickly, and with inexpensive renewables and batteries, we can do so in a cost effective manner, so long as we employ a sensible plan and the right policies. But what are the tradeoffs involved with how we do it? In most places, rooftop solar… Read More
EV driver characteristics: Evidence from Hawaii March 1, 2020 Electric vehicles (EVs) offer an opportunity to dramatically decrease greenhouse gas emissions within the transport sector if fueled by renewable energy. Hawaii had been early-on considered an ideal place to launch new EVs because of the limited driving range of its island geography. Though it ranks second in new EV registrations per capita in the… Read More
Integrating Renewable Energy with Time Varying Pricing August 13, 2018 With increasing adoption of intermittent sources of renewable energy, effective integration is paramount to fully realizing societal benefits. This study asks the question, how valuable is residential real-time pricing (RTP) in comparison to time-of-use (TOU) rates to absorb increasing sources of intermittent renewable energy? We couple a detailed power sector model with a residential electricity… Read More
Governing Green Power: How Should Utilities of the Future Make Money? June 25, 2018 This report summarizes a two-day conference that addressed how future electric utilities will make money, a question provoked by advances in renewable energy and other distributed resources that cast doubt on conventional regulatory and business models. Engagement with issues in all of the sessions was strong, giving expression to a wide range of observations, opinions… Read More