Hawaii PUC denies Friends of Lanai petition  

Credit:  Pacific Business News, www.bizjournals.com 10 May 2011 ~~

The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission has denied a petition from the nonprofit Friends of Lanai that sought to intervene in the proceedings involving the Big Wind project.

Friends of Lanai, a community advocacy organization, opposes plans to build a 200 megawatt to 400 megawatt wind farm on Lanai that would provide Oahu with energy via an undersea cable. The group sought to become a party in the deliberations and requested that the bidding process for proposed wind farms on Lanai and Molokai be reopened.

The commission issued the decision and order this week, saying that Friends of Lanai is not a party to the docket so it didn’t have authority to petition for an intervention, and its request also came too late to be considered.

The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission regulates the state’s energy, petroleum, telecommunications, transportation and water/wastewater industries.