Consumer Advocacy – Public Utilities (DCA)

HONOLULU (KHON2) — A key deadline is right around the corner for customers on Hawaiian Electric’s “Shift and Save” pilot program. They’ll need to check if they’re actually saving money and want to continue.

Appliances like your washer and dryer, air conditioner, and hot water heater are all massive energy users. Hawaiian Electric’s “Shift and Save” pilot program is checking if people would be willing to change the times they use these appliances if it lowers their bill.

“The customers were randomly selected to get a broad look at different types of customers with different lifestyles who live on different parts of our islands, and to gather information on how this works for them,” said Darren Pai, of HECO.

About 16,000 customers on Oahu and the Big Island started the program on Feb. 1. At the end of this month, their bill protection expires.

“You’re not gonna see an increase up to $10 for residential customers and 4% for commercial customers,” said Michael Angelo, executive director of DCCA’s Division of Consumer Advocacy. “So folks should go back and check their bills and if they’ve been getting that bill protection, it looks like their bills are higher, they’re gonna need to think about what they need to do.”

HECO said it has a few tools on its website to help. “My Energy Use Portal” checks daily usage and the “Shift and Savings tool” calculates estimated savings if you used appliances during the day instead of the evening.

“The ultimate goal with the program is to get folks to either reduce their energy usage overall because that’s a win,” said Angelo. “It’s always a win to reduce your energy usage, or if you can, change your energy usage to the time of day when renewable energy – solar renewable energy – is more plentiful, obviously when the sun’s shining in the middle of the day.”

HECO said results from the first six months of the program will be released in November.

Full news report here.