Hawaiian Electric seeks regulatory approval for 300MW solar, 2,000MWh battery storage projects

LinkedIn
Twitter
Reddit
Facebook
Email
Artist’s rendering of one of the projects, the 185 MW / 565 MWh Kapolei Energy Storage (KES) project from developer Plus Power. It will be interconnected on the island of Oahu and is the largest of the awarded projects. Image: Plus Power.

Hawaiian Electric has submitted eight contracts representing nearly 300MW of solar energy generation and about 2,000MWh of energy storage to be built on the islands of O’ahu and Maui.

The investor-owned utility has sent the contracts to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) for review and approval. The projects form part of Hawaii’s largest renewables tender, which closed earlier this year and saw a total of 16 projects selected.

Hawaiian Electric said the six O’ahu facilities are expected to provide enough generation and storage needed to retire the state’s only coal power facility, the 180MW plant at Campbell Industrial Park owned by AES, by September 2022. Meanwhile, the completion of two green energy projects on Maui will help enable the retirement of the 38MW oil-fired Kahului plant in 2024.

The capacity of the solar-plus-storage projects ranges from 7 – 120MW, while the lowest price is the Kahana Solar facility in Maui at US0.089/kWh.

This article requires Premium SubscriptionBasic (FREE) Subscription

Enjoy 12 months of exclusive analysis

Not ready to commit yet?
  • Regular insight and analysis of the industry’s biggest developments
  • In-depth interviews with the industry’s leading figures
  • Annual digital subscription to the PV Tech Power journal
  • Discounts on Solar Media’s portfolio of events, in-person and virtual

Or continue reading this article for free

To see the full version of this story, including a table of projects and prices per kWh, visit PV Tech.

Read Next

August 29, 2025
Potentia Energy, a joint venture co-owned by Enel Green Power and INPEX, has secured the first environmental approval for a grid-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) under South Australia’s new Hydrogen and Renewable Energy (HRE) Act.
Premium
August 28, 2025
Energy-Storage.news Premium speaks with Sergio Melendez, storage sector manager at CAISO, and Ali Karimian, market optimisation director at GridBeyond, about regulating Bid Cost Recovery Payments in the California Independent System Operator market.
August 28, 2025
California utility Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) has pushed back recommissioning of the Elkhorn battery energy storage system (BESS) by approximately one year, to 30 June 2026.
August 27, 2025
Three companies, Pacifico Energy, Zenith Volts, and Fermi America have begun expanding power generation and energy storage capabilities for US data centre development.
August 26, 2025
Governor of New Jersey, US, Phil Murphy, signed legislation into law to reach 2,000MW of energy storage capacity by 2030, and nearly doubling the state’s clean energy capacity.

Most Popular

Email Newsletter