That didn\u2019t take long.<\/p>\n
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 solar farm project on about 100 acres of state industrial land in `Ewa, O`ahu.<\/p>\n
In 2013, as part of its review of renewable energy projects for which it would seek a waiver from the PUC\u2019s competitive bidding process, Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) determined that the companies did not control the site and had improperly revised the project\u2019s size and scope. As a result, the utility chose not to request a waiver for the project from the PUC\u2019s framework for competitive bidding.<\/p>\n
In their petition, the companies argued that HECO\u2019s assessment of their project was flawed and asked the PUC for a declaratory order forcing HECO to keep open its 2013 invitation for low-cost, non-bid renewable energy projects on O`ahu. The petition also asked the PUC to order HECO to review the project \u201cin good faith.\u201d (See our February 2015 cover story for more on this.)<\/p>\n
In its order last month, the PUC granted HECO\u2019s motion to intervene in the docket on the companies\u2019 petition, but also dismissed the petition itself. The PUC pointed out that it can only issue declaratory orders on the application of its statutes, rules, or orders. In this case, the petitioners failed to identify any provision, rule, or order in question, and weren\u2019t seeking a determination as to the applicability of it, the PUC stated.<\/p>\n
\u201cRather, Petitioners\u2019 claims specifically refer to HECO\u2019s 2013 Invitation for Waivered Projects\u201d \u2014 a process that occurred outside the PUC\u2019s competitive bidding framework, the order states.<\/p>\n
Echoing HECO\u2019s argument in its motion to intervene, the PUC noted that the utility had a right not to request a waiver on behalf of a developer \u201cfor any reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether the companies will ever have the level of site control HECO desires remains to be seen. Under PSP III\u2019s development agreement with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, the company was supposed to have completed a draft environmental assessment for the project by the end of last month, but had not done so as of press time. Without an environmental assessment, the state cannot issue the company a lease for the property.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Teresa Dawson<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7300,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[324,14,372],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-7635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-324","category-energy","category-march-2015","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}