Honolulu energy use up after vow to conserve more
Since city officials announced the plan in 2007, Honolulu's electricity use has climbed nearly 15 percent. It used 194.4 million kilowatt hours of electricity during the fiscal year ending in June — up from 169.3 million kilowatt hours in the 2007 fiscal year.
The city blames the jump on recent upgrades to its Sand Island Waste Water Treatment Plant that were mandated by federal and state agencies. But officials insist that overall energy consumption patterns are going in the right direction.
Meanwhile, Hawaiian Electric Co. says overall electricity use in Oahu, Maui and Hawaii counties during the first half of this year is down 5 percent.
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MIAMI - Florida’s top court ruled against a proposed constitutional amendment that would have allowed customers to pick their electricity provider, threatening monopolies held by NextEra Energy Inc. and Duke Energy Corp.
In a ruling Thursday, the court said the petition’s language is “misleading” and doesn’t comply with requirements to be included on the 2020 ballot. The measure’s sponsor, Citizens for Energy Choice, said the move ends the initiative.
“While we were confident in our plan to gather the remaining signatures required, we cannot overcome this last obstacle,” the group’s chair, Alex Patton, said in a statement.
The proposed measure was one of…
