Hawaiian Electric has proposed spending $181 million on Maui over three years to help reduce the risk of a wildfire.

The $181 million spending plan is part of the company’s $350 million statewide proposal to the state Public Utilities Commission. The company put Maui at the highest risk for wildfires in Hawaii and proposes raising customers’ bills by $5 a month for three years.

Approximately two-thirds of the money would go toward capital investments in upgraded physical infrastructure with one-third paying for operations and maintenance, such as equipment inspections and trimming and removal of hazardous trees.

The expanded wildfire safety strategy identifies key initiatives to be completed in the next three years, including:

• Ongoing grid hardening, asset inspections and vegetation management focused on areas with medium to high risk of ignition.

• In the highest risk areas, deploy covered conductors, which are power lines protected by heavy-duty insulating material that helps prevent bare wires from sparking if they touch another line or fall to the ground.

• An initial undergrounding of about two miles of overhead power lines in critical safety areas in Lahaina with a community working group convened to provide area-specific knowledge and input. This pilot project will inform planning for future undergrounding in Lahaina and other areas.

• Replace, upgrade and strengthen poles and equipment.

• Enhance inspections of electrical assets.

• Expand hazard tree removal, create wider clearance for power lines.

• Installing more weather stations and hazard-detection cameras.

• Add more weather stations and install additional standard AI-assisted video camera stations to enable 100% camera-viewed coverage of all high and medium risk areas.

• Create a wildfire-focused Watch Office, including a meteorologist, that will monitor media reports, internal and external weather products and field reports to provide more situational awareness within Hawaiian Electric.

• Implement an operational wildfire risk model to inform real-time decision-making and refine the company’s Public Safety Power Shutoff program, potentially enabling more precise, shorter duration events.