Ted Peck is a veteran of the energy business in Hawai‘i. He's founder of a renewable energy company called Holu Energy, and has made a career out of following hunches.

He holds a degree in physics from the U.S. Naval Academy. He served aboard submarines. He has taught at Moanalua Intermediate School, briefly. He was the director of the Hawaii State Energy Office just as it launched the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative. And at one time, with the backing of business partners, he even attempted to purchase HECO itself.

Now Ted Peck is co-founder of Holu Energy, which he started in 2015 with investment from Wisconsin-based EnSync Energy. Holu has quickly made a name for itself in renewable energy, with 30 projects built or contracted in the past three years, most of them solar systems with battery back-ups for commercial clients. These projects have a combined value of $40 million. Its next moves will be toward residential solar as well as off-shore wind.

Peck believes it will be impossible for Hawaii to reach 100-percent renewable energy for its grid without wind. Holu is working on a proposal for a 400-megawatt offshore wind farm that Peck says could provide as much as a quarter of Oahu’s energy needs.