While petroleum powers our vehicles, most of us do not rely on it for the production of the electricity we use. In Hawaii, however, oil power is the primary form of electricity production and the price of a barrel of crude oil at $100/bbl is evident in the price Hawaiians are paying for their juice.

Based on 2006 data, the average retail price of electricity in Hawaii is 20.72 cents per kilowatt-hour. Due to the increase in oil prices, it is higher now. To put this into perspective, the average price in Pennsylvania is about 9 cents/kWh (55% coal, 35% nuclear) and from PPL Electric Utilities it runs just over 10 cents for a residential user. In California it is 12.72 cents/kWh, and that is mostly coming from gas. Idaho has the lowest rates with its hydroelectric power slightly less than 5 cents/kWh.

Thankfully the climate is one which does not require the use of large amounts of electricity for heating and lighting (air conditioning is another story, but I don't know first-hand how necessary it would be, but I am sure they can do just fine without it). At those electricity prices, even photovoltaics (currently one of the most expensive alternatives) are competitive. I am sure that geothermal energy is also looking much more attractive now.

The burning of oil in power stations on Hawaii has not been regarded as a completely "bad thing" because most of them use the residual fuel oil fraction which is not usable in motor vehicles or aircraft. Only power plants and the great big marine diesel engines are capable of burning it, so if it were not used in power plants it would have to be exported. I do believe that the oil industry has come up with clever ways of cracking these heavy oil fractions into gasoline and other more useful variants. If alternative electricity production were to be established, the residual fuel oil could then be converted to gasoline and jet fuel (with jet fuel being the single largest use of oil on the Hawaiian islands), effectively reducing oil imports.