Hawaii secures $18.5 million in FEMA support for five grid-resilience projects

Hawaii has secured $18.5 million in federal FEMA support for $25 million in planned grid-resilience and hazard-mitigation investments on Maui, Hawaiʻi Island and Oʻahu, state officials announced August 27, 2026.

The announcement came as Hawaiian Electric crews were still completing Hurricane Lala repairs on Hawaiʻi Island. The five projects are intended to address wildfire, flooding and hurricane risks, support faster restoration and help keep essential community services operating during prolonged outages.

Five projects are planned across three islands

The funding comes through FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program and Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program. The Hawaiʻi State Energy Office, Hawaiian Electric and the Hawaiʻi Emergency Management Agency are partnering on the work.

The five projects and listed allocations are:

$950,000 for hazard identification and mapping in West Maui.
$1 million for digital-twin modeling of the distribution grid, intended to help detect power-quality issues earlier.
$4.8 million to modernize Energy Management System platforms for the Maui and Hawaiʻi Island grids, supporting real-time monitoring.
$6.7 million for critical customer hubs at Lahaina Civic Center and Cannery Mall.
$11.9 million for critical customer hubs at Windward Mall in Kaneohe, Olomana in Kailua and Waimanalo.

The projects are scheduled for completion between 2027 and 2029. They are planned investments, not completed upgrades or an immediate response measure for current outages.

Hubs are intended to keep lifeline services operating

Critical customer hubs are intended to help nearby lifeline facilities remain operational when the wider grid fails. The state identified fire stations, police stations, medical facilities, grocery stores, pharmacies and fuel stations as examples of services that could benefit.

The hubs would not provide backup power to every household in the surrounding communities. Their purpose is to preserve access to essential services during long outages, while the digital and operational upgrades are intended to improve Hawaiian Electric’s ability to monitor the system, respond to damage and restore service.

West Maui and the Koʻolaupoko region of Windward Oʻahu are the communities most directly identified for the planned hubs. The state says Windward Oʻahu is particularly vulnerable to prolonged outages because it relies on transmission lines crossing the Koʻolau range and has no local power generation.

Hurricane Lala highlighted the restoration challenge

The long-term investment follows a storm that caused widespread outages across Hawaiian Electric’s service area. Hawaii Public Radio reported August 27 that 1,432 Hawaiʻi Island customers remained without power Thursday morning as crews worked through the last clusters of outages following Hurricane Lala.

Hawaiian Electric reported August 26 that it had restored a major transmission line from Pahala to Kilauea. The work returned service to approximately 1,300 customers, while about 1,600 customers remained without power at 6 p.m. The utility said crews were continuing damage assessments, infrastructure repairs and restoration work in some of the hardest-hit areas.

The storm context helps explain the focus of the new projects. Damage to transmission lines and isolated infrastructure can leave communities without power even after service has returned to much of an island.

What residents should watch next

Residents should not expect an immediate change to household electric service from the FEMA award. The announced completion window runs from 2027 through 2029, and the release does not promise that future storms will eliminate outages.

State officials and Hawaiian Electric say the upgrades are intended to produce fewer outages, faster restoration and better protection for critical facilities. Those projected benefits will need to be evaluated after the projects are designed, built and placed into operation.

The next significant milestones will be project design, procurement, construction updates, confirmation of the hub sites and evidence showing whether the upgrades improve outage duration or restoration performance. The Hawaiʻi State Energy Office, HIEMA and Hawaiian Electric are the principal state and utility participants responsible for carrying the package forward.

Sources

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