HECO Keeps Asking Hawaiʻi Families to Pay More — But Where Is the Accountability?

Hawaiʻi residents are once again being asked to accept a familiar pattern: the lights go out, the bills go up, and Hawaiian Electric offers explanations after the damage is done.



During the March kona low storms, more than 130,000 customers across Hawaiʻi lost power as heavy rain, damaging winds, flash flooding, and even snow at the summit hit the islands. On Oʻahu, Hawaiian Electric proactively shut off power to thousands of customers due to flooding concerns. On Hawaiʻi Island, many residents waited days for service to return, and some communities still dealt with prolonged outages after the worst of the storm had passed.

Storms happen. Kona lows are part of life in these pae ʻāina. But the real question is why HECO still seems so unprepared when severe weather hits. 

Why are rural communities left waiting? Why are customers with medical needs forced to worry whether home medical devices, refrigeration for medicine, and basic communication will survive another outage? A blackout is not just an inconvenience. For many kūpuna and medically vulnerable residents, it can quickly become an emergency.

At the same time, Hawaiʻi families are already paying some of the highest electric bills in the country. Residents are told that rates are driven by imported fuel, global oil prices, storm repairs, grid upgrades, and clean-energy transition costs. 

But ratepayers deserve a clear answer to the question every household is asking: where is all the money going?

HECO should publicly account for how much is being spent on grid hardening, tree trimming, staffing, backup systems, wildfire prevention, renewable integration, emergency response, and support for neighbor island communities. If customers are expected to pay more, they deserve proof that the money is improving reliability and safety, not just covering yesterday’s failures.



In Hawaiʻi, kuleana matters. HECO has a kuleana to keep power reliable, rates understandable, and communities safe. Regulators and elected officials should demand more than outage updates and after-action statements. Before another rate increase is passed on to ʻohana, the public deserves accountability, transparency, and a real plan to keep the lights on when Hawaiʻi needs it most.