In re Hawaiian Electric Co.

The Hawai‘i Supreme Court held that the state’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) did not abuse its discretion when it declined to re-open a 2014 order that approved a Purchase Power Agreement for wind energy. One of the allegations made by the nonprofit organization that sought to re-open the order was that the 2014 order did not analyze the project’s impact on greenhouse gas emissions as required by the public utilities law. The court found that the PUC properly declined to re-open the order to address this issue since the organization could have raised the issue earlier since the absence of an analysis of greenhouse gas emissions was “readily apparent.”