The Public Utilities Commission (PUC) in Hawaii has given its green light to a solar and storage project on South Maui island to be built by Canada's Innergex Renewable Energy.
Hawaiian Electric announced the project will be a 15 MW solar PV array with a 60 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) built on close to 200 acres of land leased from Ulupalakua Ranch, mauka of Piilani Highway in Kihei. It is due to be commissioned in 2023 and during its lifetime the project can replace the use of 1.3 million barrels of liquid fuel and lower the region's GHG emissions, the utility stated.
Out of 4 projects planned to come up on Maui island over the next 3 years, the Paeahu Solar Project will supply clean power to the utility for $0.12 per kWh for a period of 25 years.
This tariff, the utility points out, is in line with prices for other grid scale solar and battery projects approved in 2019 for the islands of Maui, Oahu, and Hawaii, and were selected under phase I of Hawaiian Electric's renewable energy procurement effort launched in February 2018.
Along with the Paeahu project, regulators have also approved a utility scale solar plus storage project AES Kuihelani in Central Maui and are reviewing contracts for 2 additional such projects for West and Central Maui.
Innergex was one of the winners for 2 projects from Hawaiian Electric out of total 460 MW solar and 3 GWh storage capacity the utility awarded in June 2020 (see Winners List For 16 Hawaiian Electric PV Projects).