The Hawai`i Supreme Court has weighed in on the question of whether greenhouse gas emissions need to be considered before the Public Utilities Commission can approve power-purchase agreements with independent power companies. And the answer is: Yes! The commission “erred … Continued
A feud between Hawaiian Electric and SunEdison could put in jeopardy three of the four large-scale solar power projects approved for O`ahu last year. On February 12, Hawaiian Electric informed the Public Utilities Commission that it “exercised its termination rights” … Continued
Defending the decision to phase out new net-energy metering customers, the Public Utilities Commission noted that the NEM program “was simply not designed for … deployment at the scale experienced today.” When the current NEM program was authorized in 2001, … Continued
It was big news last winter when Hawaiian Electric Company – HECO, the utility that serves O`ahu – announced that it had reached power purchase agreements (PPAs) with developers of six large-scale solar farms that would, when operational, feed more … Continued
The Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism (DBEDT) has issued its first “true-up” for the Green Energy Market Securitization (GEMS) bonds. The true-up, a required element of the program approved by the Public Utilities Commission, is a periodic accounting … Continued
In March, Environment Hawai`i provided details – to the extent they were available – of a state-administered program called GEMS, short for Green Energy Market Securitization. The program is intended, according to enabling legislation, to bring the blessings of solar … Continued
When cooking up its Green Energy Market Securitization (GEMS) program, the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism seems to have followed the recipe for growing mushrooms. You know the one: keep them in the dark and feed them … … Continued
Since 2009, customers of the Hawaiian Electric companies have been charged a Public Benefits Fee. Calculated as a percentage of usage, the fee pays a contractor to the state Public Utilities Commission who manages a program that is intended … Continued
Usually, when a state board or commission is asked to make a decision, its staff will prepare a background report. In the case of the Board of Land and Natural Resources, for example, the staff report can run to several … Continued
That didn’t take long. On February 4, the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) dismissed without prejudice a petition filed late last December by West Wind Works, LLC, Investricity, Ltd., and PSP III, LLC, seeking to revive their rejected 30 megawatt … Continued