Hawaii Utility Regulators Reject Hu Honua Biomass Power Plant

The Hawaii Public Utilities Fee has given the thumbs all the way down to a tree-burning energy plant on the Huge Island.

In its 164-page choice with one dissent, the three-member panel listed quite a lot of explanation why Honua Ola Bioenergy, previously generally known as Hu Honua, shouldn’t be granted an amended energy buy settlement with Hawaiian Electrical Gentle Firm. The highest causes: the venture will end in vital greenhouse fuel emissions, which contribute to local weather change, and Hu Honua’s carbon sequestration plan is speculative and based mostly on “unsupported assertions.”

The fee mentioned it has considerations in regards to the doubtlessly vital long-term environmental and public well being impacts of the venture if the facility settlement with HELCO is permitted.

As well as, the fee discovered that the facility buy settlement is prone to end in excessive prices to ratepayers, each via its comparatively costly electrical energy and the potential displacement of different decrease value, renewable sources.

The biomass plant, positioned 10 miles north of Hilo, is just not anticipated to ship distinctive advantages to HELCO’s grid neither is it urgently required presently, the fee dominated. Subsequently, it will not be prudent or within the public curiosity to approve the facility buy settlement, in response to the ruling.

The 2 commissioners who signed off on the denial have been outgoing chair James Griffin and Jennifer Potter.

Commissioner Leodoloff Asuncion Jr. wrote in his dissent that when the fee reopened the Hu Honua docket on June 30 upon remand from the state Supreme Court docket, it was supposed to contemplate “slender points” associated to the greenhouse fuel emissions.

The proof clearly establishes that the burden of proof has been met and that the biomass plant will end in a major discount in greenhouse fuel emissions over the course of its 30-year life, he mentioned.

He added that the upper prices that may be handed on to ratepayers are affordable.

The Hu Honua venture has been within the making for a few years, slowed down in litigation and regulatory proceedings. The fee initially granted an influence buy settlement to the corporate in 2017 however environmental group Lifetime of the Land efficiently sued, arguing that the plant’s potential to trigger air air pollution was not adequately taken into consideration. The Supreme Court docket agreed, vacated the settlement and remanded the matter again to the fee.

In June 2019, the fee reopened its docket for additional proceedings. Many twists and turns have occurred since then, together with a number of days of evidentiary hearings in March. Throughout these hearings, HELCO representatives testified in assist of the facility buy settlement, saying Hu Honua would increase renewable vitality out there on the grid.

The biomass plant proposes to burn eucalyptus timber and convert the steam into 21.5 megawatts of vitality, supplying about 14 p.c of Hawaii island’s energy wants or about 14,000 households. That might end in 8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide produced over the lifetime of the plant.

The corporate says the operation shall be carbon impartial as a result of carbon dioxide launched by the plant can be offset via reforestation, the acquisition of carbon offsets, and by displacing current turbines that run on fossil fuels.

Griffin and Potter didn’t discover these claims credible “resulting from Hu Honua’s reliance on a variety of speculative assumptions.” The margin of error in Hu Honua’s carbon sequestration evaluation is so small that even a tiny change within the operation might outcome within the energy plant turning into a major supply of air air pollution, in response to the choice. It’s additionally unclear whether or not and the way the fee would be capable of implement Hu Honua’s carbon commitments over the course of three many years.

A request for remark from Hu Honua president Warren Lee is pending.

Learn the total ruling under.