LIHU‘E — The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will no longer issue non-mandatory preliminary permits for hydropower projects in the state of Hawai‘i. FERC’s decision was delivered in its order dismissing two preliminary permit applications from competing energy developers seeking to
LIHU‘E — The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will no longer issue non-mandatory preliminary permits for hydropower projects in the state of Hawai‘i.
FERC’s decision was delivered in its order dismissing two preliminary permit applications from competing energy developers seeking to explore hydropower development utilizing Kekaha Ditch near Waimea.
For more than a year, Pacific Light and Power had been pursuing a Kekaha Ditch hydro project through the state of Hawai‘i’s hydropower authorization process when Free Flow Power, under the name Kahawai Power 4, filed a preliminary permit application with FERC for the same site.
“This appears to us to be a type of unwarranted ‘claim-jumping,’” the FERC order states. “Moreover, in order to avoid similar situations in the future, we will, as a general matter, decline to issue preliminary permits for projects in Hawai‘i that would be subject to permissive section 4(e) licensing.”
Four existing preliminary permits filed by FFP, and later transferred to Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative, are not impacted by FERC’s ruling; however, FFP’s preliminary permit application for the sixth of six projects — Kitano Water Power Project, slated for Koke‘e Ditch — may now be off the table.
For more in-depth coverage of this developing story, see a weekend edition of The Garden Island.
