Project Development

Site Selection and Site Control

Well begun is half done. In Hawaiʻi a power project is largely decided by the ground it stands on: the voltage it can reach, the hazards it must avoid, the permits its zoning allows, and the people who live beside it. We settle those questions before a proposal is written.

What a Site Must Have

Hawaiian Electric's competitive procurements set the terms a site must meet. Each round writes its own; these are the ones that decide whether a site can be proposed at all.

• Site control. The right to use the site for the full contract term: a lease, an option, or a binding agreement with the landowner, on land whose zoning does not prohibit the project. Without it, a proposal does not go forward.
• Interconnection voltage. A connection to Hawaiian Electric's transmission system at the voltage it designates: on Oʻahu, 138 kV or 46 kV; on Hawaiʻi Island, 69 kV. The utility names the substations and lines where new generation fits best.
• Land use. Land already paved, zoned industrial or commercial, or reclaimed as a brownfield, used efficiently and with as little new impervious cover as the project allows.
• Hazards. The site must lie outside the 3.2-foot sea-level-rise exposure area, outside the tsunami evacuation zone, and outside flood zones A, AE, AEF, AH, AO, and VE.
• Single point of failure. A design in which no single failure takes more of the plant off line than the island's grid can absorb.
• Before the proposal. A cultural assessment under contract, an archaeological literature review and field inspection, and a community engagement plan.
• After the interconnection review. A project may change its technology or other characteristics only with the utility's prior written consent.

Every one of these is fixed by the site. A proposal cannot repair it later.

What We Screen Every Site For

Grid

Distance and route to the preferred point of interconnection; the substation's open positions and injection limit; the voltage and ownership of nearby transmission and distribution lines; co-location on existing utility corridors; the Renewable Energy Zones in Hawaiian Electric's Integrated Grid Plan.

Land use and zoning

State Land Use District (Urban, Rural, Agricultural, Conservation); county zoning and any Special Use, Conditional Use, or Conservation District Use Permit the use would need; Special Management Area; shoreline setback; Important Agricultural Lands and ALISH soil ratings; NRCS soils; agricultural district rules; HUBZone designation; brownfield or landfill status; easements, tax map key, and title; parcel size, shape, and setbacks; slope and topography; geotechnical setting.

Hazards

FEMA flood zone and Special Flood Hazard Area; tsunami evacuation zone; sea-level-rise exposure area; lava-flow hazard zone on Hawaiʻi Island; hurricane wind zone; dam inundation; wildfire.

Environment and culture

The triggers of Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes chapter 343 (state or county land or funds, conservation land, the shoreline); wetlands and streams; critical habitat and listed species; historic and archaeological sites reviewed by the State Historic Preservation Division; burial sites; the ahupuaʻa and its cultural landscape; view planes; noise; the air-quality setting and the nearest sensitive receptors.

Surroundings

The nature and nearness of the community: residences, schools, parks, Hawaiian Home Lands, the neighborhood board district; surrounding uses; complementary uses such as industrial parks, harbors, fuel terminals, and existing plants; airport height limits under FAA Part 77; military installations.

Logistics

Fuel delivery by harbor, pipeline, or road; water; power for construction; access roads and haul routes; construction laydown.

Control

Ownership (private, Hawaiian Home Lands, state, or county); lease and option terms; the land-use path to a building permit, confirmed before a proposal is written.

The Site Library

HL&P keeps a research library of candidate sites across the islands, screened against every layer above and kept current, including sites that have no project on them yet.

How a Project Moves

1. Site control. An option or lease for the full contract term. Gate: site control in hand before a proposal is submitted.
2. Procurement. Hawaiian Electric's competitive procurements under the Commission's Framework for Competitive Bidding; county solicitations for waste processing and energy recovery. Gate: selection to the final award group.
3. Interconnection. Hawaiian Electric's interconnection studies and the interconnection agreement. We commission the grid models the utility requires. Gate: an executed interconnection agreement and power purchase agreement.
4. Commission approval. The Public Utilities Commission reviews the power purchase agreement in a docketed proceeding. Gate: the Commission's Decision and Order.
5. Environmental review and land use. Review under chapter 343 where it is triggered; state and county land-use entitlements; historic preservation review. Gate: an accepted environmental document before discretionary permits issue.
6. Air permitfirm generation. A Covered Source Permit from the Department of Health for anything that burns fuel. Gate: the permit in hand before construction of the emission units begins.
7. Fire-code reviewbattery storage. The county fire department reviews the battery installation under the fire code's energy-storage provisions. Gate: fire-department approval of the installation before the building permit issues.
8. Financing. Debt and equity close on an approved contract and permitted site. Gate: financial close before full notice to proceed.
9. Construction permits, construction, and commissioning. County grading, building, and electrical permits; construction; testing with the utility to commercial operation.

Permitting Timeline

The approvals a power plant needs in Hawaiʻi, in order, with the typical time each takes, for firm generation and for battery storage. Bars that overlap run at the same time; a bar that waits starts at the earliest typical finish of the step it waits on. Each name links to its entry in the Law & Permit Library; each number to its source below.

Typical ranges from the public record and the governing rules, not commitments. A specific project's path depends on its site, size, and technology. Month 0 is the utility's release of the RFP; site control comes before it.

Sources

1. Hawaiian Electric, Integrated Grid Planning RFP, Main Body (Aug. 7, 2026): RFP issued Aug. 7, 2026; final award group Sept. 10, 2027; "Proposers should assume, at a minimum, a 17-month to 19-month process for the completion of the IRS, and the execution and filing of the IGP Contract." Docket No. 2024-0258.
2. PUC record, RFP release to final award group: Stage 2 (Docket No. 2017-0352), Aug. 22, 2019 to May 8, 2020, 8.5 months; Stage 3 Oʻahu, Jan. 20 to Dec. 8, 2023, 10.6 months; Stage 3 Hawaiʻi Island, Nov. 21, 2022 to Dec. 8, 2023, 12.5 months; IGP RFP as scheduled, 13.1 months.
3. PUC record, interconnection studies after the Stage 2 final award group (May 8, 2020): Kapolei Energy Storage facility study, 13.6 months; Mahi Solar, 14.7 months; Waiawa Phase 2 interconnection amendment, 22.5 months.
4. PUC record, 29 power purchase agreement approvals on applications filed 2018–2026: 84 to 894 days, median 183 days (about 6 months); Kalaeloa amended and restated PPA (Docket No. 2021-0188), 364 days; Kapolei Energy Storage (Docket No. 2020-0136), 226 days. The Framework for Competitive Bidding (Order No. 23121, Docket No. 03-0372), Part III.B.4, sets no deadline.
5. HRS § 343-5(a)(9)(E) (power-generating facility); § 343-5(e) (30-day draft EA comment; 45-day draft EIS comment; 30-day acceptance or deemed accepted); § 343-7(b), (c) (30- and 60-day challenge periods); HAR §§ 11-200.1-14(b) (30-day level-of-review decision), -22 (30-day FONSI determination), -23(c) (30-day preparation-notice comment).
6. PUC record, Schofield Generating Station joint NEPA/HEPA EIS: preparation notice Jan. 7, 2014; draft EIS Apr. 15, 2015 (15 months).
7. HAR §§ 13-284-5 (30 days), -6 and -7 (45 days each), -8 (45 days; 30-day comment on detailed plans), -9 (30 days); HRS § 6E-42(a) (review "before any approval").
8. ROH § 21-2.40-1 (minor conditional use permit, 45 days) and -2 (major, 90 days; Plan Review Use, about 150 days); Hawaiʻi County Planning Commission Rule 7-5, 7-7 (hearing within 90 days; decision within 60 days after); KCC § 8-3.1(f) (60 plus 60 days, or deemed approved); HRS § 205-4(g) (Land Use Commission, 365 days); HRS § 183C-6(b) (Conservation District Use Permit, 180 days); HRS § 205A-29(b) (SMA approval first).
9. HAR § 11-60.1-83(c) (60-day completeness, or deemed complete) and (e) (decision within 18 months of a complete application); § 11-60.1-82(a) (no construction before the permit); § 11-60.1-99 (30-day public comment); § 11-60.1-95 (45-day EPA review).
10. 14 C.F.R. § 77.7(b) (Form 7460-1 at least 45 days before construction); § 77.9 (notice thresholds); FAA regional guidance ("at least 60 days" to process).
11. HAR § 11-55-34.08(j)(2) (notice of intent at least 30 days before construction) and § 11-55-34.09(e) (coverage on the 30th day after a complete notice).
12. Hawaiʻi County Building Division Rules, Pt. II § 2.2 (30 days per reviewer, as quoted by the County Auditor); PUC record, Waiawa Phase 2 (Docket No. 2021-0024), Honolulu building and electrical permit, submitted July 12, 2022, approved July 24, 2025 (1,108 days).
13. State Fire Code (eff. Sept. 5, 2025), adopting NFPA 1 (2024), whose chapter 52 governs energy storage systems by reference to NFPA 855; ROH § 20-3.3 (fire plan review within 30 days, or deemed approved). Hawaiʻi County (HCC ch. 17) and Kauaʻi (KCC ch. 15A) state no review period.
14. PUC record and HIED registry, Decision and Order to commercial operation: Kapolei Energy Storage, 31.5 months; Kupono Solar (solar plus storage), 22.5 months; solar-plus-storage on Hawaiian Electric systems, 22.5 to 75.7 months, median 52.
15. HL&P observation, from projects in development; not a public record.

Current as of 2026-10-27. Not legal advice.

Islands

Oʻahu. Hawaiian Electric Company procures generation and storage for the island's grid through the Commission's competitive bidding framework.

Hawaiʻi Island. Hawaii Electric Light Company procures for the island's grid on the same terms. HL&P's work there is firm generation, battery storage, and renewable fuel.

Kauaʻi. The County of Kauaʻi procures long-term management of its municipal solid waste. HL&P leads the development team for a facility that would make renewable diesel and naphtha from the County's waste stream.