Hawaiian Electric hopes to fast track five solar and wind energy projects that could come online quickly and begin supplying clean electricity to the city of Oahu at an average price of 15.9 cents per kilowatt hour. That price matches what Hawaiian Electric currently pays for electricity generation from oil.

“We are highly dependent on oil for electricity here,” Hawaiian Electric spokesman Peter Rosegg said in previous interview. “Oil prices on the island don’t reflect what’s happening in the United States, but what the Japanese market is and they’re willing to pay very high prices.”

Since Japan decommissioned its nuclear plants after the tsunami there two years ago, the country has become more dependent on oil for power generation, causing oil prices to skyrocket throughout the Asian Pacific, including Hawaii.

Whether the utility can streamline approval of the proposed renewable energy projects depends on approval from the Public Utilities Commission, which has to waive its requirement for competitive bidding before Hawaiian Electric can move forward with negotiations.

The utility negotiated with the PUC to go forward with inviting proposals for renewable energy development in February as a stop gap until the commission approves the utility’s complicated comprehensive request for proposals that will allow solar and other renewable energy developers to build systems on other islands and transfer the power to Oahu through underwater transmission lines – something that has never been done before. Since the RFP is so complex, it has been under review with the commission for nearly two years.

Hawaiian Electric can’t keep waiting, Rosegg said. The island state has the most aggressive renewable energy portfolio standard in the country, with investor-owned utilities required to get 40 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

When the utility invited proposals in February, it received more than 20 applications from renewable energy developers proposing well-thought-out projects – all larger than 5 megawatts.

The five proposed projects combined would provide 64 megawatts of electricity to Oahu. If the utility can successfully negotiate a 20-year power purchase agreement with each of the developers, it estimates it will save approximately $7.4 million a year in generation costs, compared to today’s expenses.

"Every step we take toward reducing our customers' bills helps. We can't control the cost of oil, but we can try to accelerate the addition of more low cost renewable energy resources," said Scott Seu, Hawaiian Electric vice president for Energy Resources and Operations.

The utilities commission will have to individually review each of the five proposed projects before approving them. Hawaiian Electric will also have the option of offering the remaining 20 applicants that weren’t selected for the first round of negotiations with the PUC to resubmit their proposals for consideration.