Pacific Business News: Honua Ola Bioenergy Seeks PUC Decision by Sept. 30, Warns of Layoffs, Lawsuit if Project Dies
August 25, 2020
By Megan Fernandes
Honua Ola Bioenergy is still awaiting the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission’s decision on the Hu Honua bioenergy plant.
PUC Chair Jay Griffin told Pacific Business News earlier this month that “On Monday, Aug. 10, the PUC received responses from the parties on Hu Honua’s Motion for Reconsideration. The PUC is reviewing the filings and will determine the next procedural steps.”
On Monday, Honua Ola Bioenergy, LLC submitted a supplemental response to the replies made by the Consumer Advocate, Tawhiri Power, and Life of the Land regarding Hu Honua Bioenergy’s motion for reconsideration.
In the filing, Honua Ola Bioenergy requested the PUC make a decision on its motion for reconsideration by Sept. 30. If a decision is not made by then, the company says it will “be forced to start laying off employees.”
The company also noted in the filing that if the project is killed, it may “result in the resumption of the lawsuit in which Hu Honua seeks an award of damages of more than $555 million, which in turn may negatively impact [Hawaiian Electric Industries and Hawaiian Electric companies] financially, including the utility’s bond rating, which would likely be detrimental to the utility and its ratepayers.”
“The Order Revoking Waiver sets a dangerous precedent that developers cannot rely upon a governmental decision,” Honua Ola’s representation said in the document. “This precedent will deter and discourage investors, thereby harming the state’s economy, because there is no guarantee of finality in government decisions. In addition, it reflects that no consideration is given to, or no importance is placed upon, the developer’s investment of significant sums of capital over a long duration of time.”
The most recent filing in the docket goes through claims made by the Consumer Advocate, Tawhiri Power, and Life of the Land in opposition to the motion of reconsideration.
The motion for consideration hinges on Hu Honua Bioenergy making a case that the Commission’s order revoking waiver was unreasonable, unlawful, or erroneous. The Consumer Advocate, Tawhiri Power, and Life of the Land refute that there is much of a case, but Honua Ola stands firm that it does, filing more than 80 pages in response Monday.
The three entities similarly argue that Hu Honua’s Motion for Reconsideration fails to meet the applicable standard for such relief because it appears to “present no new evidence or arguments” that were unable to be presented at earlier portions of the docket. Honua Ola argued that its motion for reconsideration appropriately introduced new evidence to address concerns raised about the docket.
Honua Ola also argued that revoking the previously approved power purchase agreement was unjust, not only because it was out of the scope of what the Hawaii legislature ordered the PUC to address in 2017, but because it “violated [Honua Ola’s] due process rights by failing to give the company notice and an opportunity to be heard before it revoked the PPA waiver from competitive bidding.” One of the company’s biggest concerns is the PUC comparing the price of Hu Honua’s energy to renewables like solar-plus-battery storage — which is comparing “apples to oranges,” the company has previously told PBN.
“Not only did the Commission not provide any guidance or instruction on how to appropriately compare the competitive benchmarks of such fundamentally different resources in order for the parties to provide briefing on the matter, but it did not provide the specific criteria it would be evaluating and considering in order to make such comparison,” the company said in the filing.
Even if Hawaiian Electric issued a new competitive RFP, it would result in “several years of delay” to complete the process, the company estimates.
“In addition, if the Commission takes the position that it is not killing the project, it is merely asking that the project be competitively bid, the Commission knows full well that this is the equivalent of killing the project,” Honua Ola’s representation said. “There has been no competitive RFP to date that would have allowed Hu Honua to fairly bid into, and according to HELCO it has no plans to issue a competitive RFP for biomass or true firm renewable energy.”
Pacific Business News, August 25, 2020: https://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/news/2020/08/25/honua-ola-bioenergy-seeks-decision-by-sept-30.html