Reliable Prices, Dependable Supply, and a Greener, Healthier Hawai’i

Over 60% of energy sold on Hawai’i Island comes from oil. And the price of oil is volatile and rising — the cost has soared over 80% from a year ago.

As of June 2022, Big Island ratepayers paid on average 31C per kilowatt hour for the entire mix of energy supplied by Hawaiian Electric and 41C for oil-fueled energy supplied by Hamakua Energy.
Compare these prices with the 22C per kilowatt hour renewable energy Honua Ola Bioenergy would bring.

Honua Ola will generate firm, always-on energy needed to retire existing oil plants and stabilize the electric grid, enabling more capacity for weather dependent solar and wind in the future.
Honua Ola has also committed as a condition of its approval to be carbon negative, the only energy plant in the state to do so. We’ve asked the Public Utilities Commission to select an independent third party to monitor and confirm our carbon emissions and reduction, and agreed to continued PUC oversight to ensure we are carbon negative.

And we’ve committed to adhere to any additional requirements the PUC deems necessary to hold us accountable, now and in the future.

Honua Ola has invested more than half a billion dollars and our plant is 99% completed.
The PUC approved Honua Ola’s power purchase agreement in 2013, and again in 2017. And still we are being challenged on pricing even as the volatility of oil prices continue, and local oil-fueled energy prices climb as high as 41C per kilowatt hour (more than double a year ago).

Honua Ola is ready to get underway, providing Hawai’i Island residents with the reliable prices and dependable supply they need, and the greener, healthier future they deserve.

“Everybody wants Hawaii to be 100 percent renewable by 2045. The only way is with plants like this.”
– Nui lopa,
Auxiliary Operator