Hawaii is making significant progress when it comes to its clean energy goals, according to Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz, a keynote speaker at this year’s Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and Expo. (The conference wraps up today.)

Here’s a snippet from his speech: 

In 2005 there were 30 distributed generation systems with a total capacity of 166kW.  By 2011, there was 66 MW of cumulative solar capacity installed statewide, including distributed and utility-scale systems. 

§        After several years of fairly modest growth, 2012 will be a record year for wind installations, bringing statewide capacity to almost 200 MW, half of which will be on O‘ahu. 

§        The percentage of total energy generation from renewable sources has grown from 6.8% in 2005 to 9.5% in 2010. 

We are also leading in Energy Efficiency 

§        Hawai‘i’s energy efficiency portfolio standard goal is 30% of annual electricity sales by 2030.  In 2005 we were at 5% and by 2010 we were at nearly 11%, one third of the way to our goal. 

§        This has been reflected in the steady decline in electricity consumption since 2004, from approximately 8000 kWhs in 2004 to 7000 kWh in 2010. 

Civil Beat also caught up with Schatz at the conference yesterday to talk about Hawaii’s collaboration with Japan. 

Check out the story and videos from the interview here: Hawaii, Japan Forge Energy Bond Following Fukushima Disaster