“Clean energy” is the term used to describe such projects, but getting them to materialize at all? That can be messy.

Just ask Na Pua Makani Power Partners, the local affiliate of the California-based firm Champlin/GEI Wind Holdings LLC.

Last week it secured the last state approval it sought for its wind farm, which will be the third located on Oahu’s North Shore, to the chagrin of some community groups challenging it.

Wind farms represent a mature industry that can play a part in the state’s long-standing energy campaign to move away from fossil fuels. The fact that this proposal took five years to get through the regulatory obstacle course underscores the complexity of this issue.

It also shows that government is right to weigh each green-energy proposals with caution and develop a portfolio tapping various technologies, from solar to geothermal. Leaders also must support research into new modalities that are not yet perfected. That’s the way to manage the potential problems that each of them includes.

Wind exemplifies the challenge. It’s a technology that has an appealing yield, capturing non-polluting energy from the prevailing winds, a resource that persists in optimal locations such as Kahuku. That’s where Na Pua Makani will develop the farm on 707 acres.

But opponents cite the noise and aesthetic detraction of the massive windmills among its demerits.

In this case, it was the protection of the endangered Hawaiian hoary bat and other wildlife that led the company to produce a habitat conservation plan.

That document was approved by the state Board of Land and Natural Resources following a contested-case process a year ago. It outlines how Na Pua Makani would follow the lead of an adjacent windfarm. It aims to reduce bat deaths by adjusting the blades of its eight turbines when they’re spinning at slower speeds.

That was a needed adjustment. And while this company may have threaded the needle with sufficient care to get through the environmental reviews, there is still need for oversight by the state.

Officials must see that Na Pua Makani fulfills its pledge to provide a community benefit fund of $10,000 per turbine per year, for the life of the project, or $2 million over its anticipated 25-year term.

And the state Public Utilities Commission must ride herd on this utility and others to see that some of the technology’s cost savings are passed on to ratepayers. Na Pua Makani is touted as capable to deliver electricity at about half the cost of oil-fired generators, and as being the lowest-cost wind project in the state. The public deserves at least a cut of that.

Worldwide, some community hosts for clean-energy installations have ended up on the losing side. In Galinhos, Brazil, for example, the neighbors of a wind farm have protested that their promised community benefits still have not come through. So enforceability is key.

On another front, Hawaii island’s energy resources have always positioned it closest to energy self-sufficiency, among all the counties statewide. In particular, it had uniquely capitalized on geothermal energy.

Now that advantage is threatened. The eruption of Kilauea is a slow-moving disaster, one that has forced Puna Geothermal Venture to quench its wells, even as lava has entered its property.

The ongoing risk has hung a question mark over future prospects for geothermal energy. At the very least, it will propel the stakeholders to re-evaluate how to insulate the plant against such hazards.

The public and private sectors must work toward further gains in the use of solar energy, which has been the predominant success in Hawaii thus far. Innovations that could advance solar battery storage are encouraging developments and may enable consumers to reap the benefits without too much of a dent in household budgets.

Research in these fields may move slowly but should be funded appropriately. One example: The military is moving toward renewables in the interest of energy security. Its contributions to technological progress ultimately will benefit the entire sector, and dividends for taxpayers should prove worthwhile.

In addition, the U.S. Senate is advancing an appropriations bill with $375 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, a division within the federal Department of Energy (DOE) established to sponsor technology projects. With careful oversight, those investments could further Hawaii’s clean-energy goals.

It’s been a decade since then-Gov. Linda Lingle forged a partnership with the federal DOE known as the Clean Energy Initiative. With refinements made in the interim, this policy of energy self-sufficiency should boost the local economy and the health of the environment, as the dangers of climate change loom.

That was, and still is, the correct path for Hawaii, if a circuitous and even risky one. Those looking out for the state’s interests must stay alert to the signposts along the way.