Article from January 2022:

Biden's climate agenda is stalled in Congress. In Hawaii, one key part is going ahead

On the island of Maui ... For the green transition to work, she says, it can't just be the monopoly utility making renewable energy – lots of renewable energy producers will need to be on the grid.

The problem, she argues, is that traditionally, the monopoly utility, Hawaiian Electric, hasn't had a clear incentive to hook up renewable energy from projects like this quickly.

"This project was ten years coming from start to finish," Potter says, "Ten years! That's problematic. We see that as being a huge issue."

Potter and her colleagues in Oahu have embarked on an experiment to retool more than a hundred years of regulatory precedent and get Hawaii's power company off fossil fuels. The state has begun implementing a system of incentives – and some penalties– to speed up the transition to 100% renewable energy.

Jennifer Potter is a commissioner on Hawaii's Public Utility Commission. She and her colleagues are retooling more than a hundred years of regulatory precedent to get Hawaii's monopoly utility to 100% renewable electricity.

This carrot-and-stick approach to getting utilities off fossil fuels is reminiscent of a central climate plan that Biden and Congressional Democrats pushed for in the Build Back Better bill.

She says the failure of the climate change bill raises the stakes for states like Hawaii to take the lead on decarbonizing electricity.

"Policy makers can set pretty ambitious goals, 'we're going to be net zero' or however they want to frame it. But the crux of it all is, 'OK, but how are utilities actually going to be able to achieve these goals?'" she says. "With no federal legislation in sight, I think it becomes even more important for states to develop the policies and regulations that are required to incentivize utilities to decarbonize."

https://www.npr.org/2022/01/15/1066578157/bidens-climate-agenda-is-stalled-in-congress-in-hawaii-one-key-part-is-going-ahe

VEEEERY convenient ...