The Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative will be a “critical demonstration and national test bed for the technologies that we seek to deploy at an unprecedented rate and scale,” says Alexander Karsner, DOE assistant secretary of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Karsner and Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle (R) signed the HCEI memorandum of understanding on Jan. 28 in Honolulu.

Hawaii already is one of only three states, including California and New Jersey, that have set goals for greenhouse-gas emissions, says Theodore Peck, energy planning and policy branch chief in the state’s Dept. of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. The new program’s goal is to supply at least 70% of the state’s energy needs with renewable energy by 2030.

Hawaii now has the highest electricity and gasoline prices in the U.S., says Lingle. The average retail electricity price in 2006 in Hawaii was 20.72¢ per kilowatt-hour, 34% higher than prices in Massachusetts, the next-highest, according to the Energy Information Administration. Oil and coal-fueled power provided 92% of the state’s generation that year. Prices in some of the outer islands can be 30¢ to 40¢ per kwh, adds Peck.

Under HCEI, working groups of stakeholders will define the structural, technical, regulatory, financial and other barriers to be overcome. The groups will address energy efficiency in structures and communities, expanding generation with renewable energy, improvements in transmission, distribution, grid management and energy storage, and alternative transportation fuels and mass transit.

DOE is “giving thought” to putting HCEI’s model to work in U.S. island territories, says a DOE official.