On August 23, the Land Board voted to accept a supplemental environmental impact statement for the Auwahi wind farm on Maui and approve a new Habitat Conservation Plan for the take of an additional 119 endangered Hawaiian hoary bats over … Continued
On June 6, Judge Greg K. Nakamura of the 3rdCircuit Court in Hilo heard arguments on several motions to dismiss a lawsuit filed last fall by Claudia Rohr. It was the second complaint that Rohr had brought in an effort … Continued
Marti Townsend, director of the Sierra Club’s Hawai‘i Chapter, asked the audience crammed into a state capitol conference room last month to imagine a world in which fossil fuel companies in the 1980s took the warnings of its scientists about … Continued
In December 2017, the Hawai‘i Supreme Court told the state Public Utilities Commission that it had to consider greenhouse gas emissions in carrying out “all of the [commission’s] duties.” The decision wasn’t unanimous. In fact, it was as close as … Continued
The Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) is inching closer to securing a long-term lease for stream diversions that feed two hydroelectric plants on the island’s east side. This month, the utility is expected to release a draft environmental assessment (EA) … Continued
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