A presentation to a closed-door meeting of electric power executives in 2012 has come to light as a smoking gun that confirms the suspicion of solar power proponents: that power companies pretending to be for solar power have really been obstructing it.

This is going to change the debate on renewable energy, creating new credibility problems for utility lobbyists, so whether you’re a solar supporter or a Hawaiian Electric executive you’ll want to know what happened.

In September 2012 the Edison Electric Institute, an industry group, made a presentation for an industry retreat that characterized residential solar as the enemy, threatening electric companies with falling revenues and outright decline of customers.

The Energy & Policy Institute got a copy, showed it to the Washington Post, and posted it on its website http://www.energyandpolicy.org .

The Post lead Sunday: “Three years ago, the nation’s top utility executives gathered at a Colorado resort to hear warnings about a grave new threat to operators of America’s electric grid: not superstorms or cyberattacks, but rooftop solar panels.”

The resort? The Broadmoor, I think. Lovely place.

The 2012 presentation called for “an action plan to address the challenges” by getting lawmakers and regulators to support higher fees for solar panel owners. Sure enough, since that retreat, legislatures all over the country have seen bills to raise costs for solar.

Regulators have also been the target of “focused outreach.” That means lobbying. Sometimes it works. Last month Arizona got a new fee for net metering. A few months ago Wisconsin did.

Many bills have failed. When not individually beholden to the electric lobby, Republicans see these moves as anti-competitive, Democrats see them as anti-environment, and both are right. An interesting twist is that evangelical groups are mostly pro-solar, too, because many churches have solar panels.

How does all of this apply, or not, to Hawaiian Electric Industries?

Hawaiian Electric has spent a lot of money portraying itself as pro-renewables. Its campaign boils down to, “We love all this new stuff, we just want to make sure the grid stays safe.”

On its home page, Hawaiian Electric says it has been “honored for work in applying research and development by the Electric Power Research Institute, an independent, nonprofit national organization that works to improve electric service to utility customers.”

There is nothing “independent” about the Electric Power Research Institute, which is funded by the electric utility industry. The institute promotes “clean coal.” And solar? “It just doesn’t enter into our equation,” research director Revis James told the New York Times in 2009.

Once you know about the 2012 Edison Institute retreat, some of the seemingly pro-solar comments Hawaiian Electric has made, begin to look suspicious. You notice that whenever the company talks about increasing solar, it says “sustainably” increasing solar. What does that mean? The Sun is already sustainable. Cynics will say it means profit sustainability. Candor renders cynics marginal; spin, once people figure it out, gives cynics aid and comfort.

I’m not sure why power companies feel the need to talk the solar talk while walking the anti-solar walk. I’ll bet there are people working for Hawaiian Electric who feel the same way. I also think there is a slow pendulum swing inside the company, and supporting third-party power providers may no longer be suicidal to your career in the electric company as it once was. Take away the needless spin and there is a real need to keep the grid stable and safe.

Yet there still is a PR campaign to be seen as pro-renewables while applying braking pressure. It’s ill-advised because it was never going to go unrecognized forever, and now people will be skeptical of the next thing they say.

A final point, this one for regulators. Hawaiian Electric is a publicly-traded company and its executives have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. They have to look out for profit returns. You don’t. If the shift to renewables results in electric companies being smaller, it wouldn’t be the first time technology altered the state of an industry. It is not a regulator’s responsibility to keep buggy whips profitable.