Renewable

Energy Sources

Trash can be burned to make steam to turn a turbine. On Oahu, the City’s HPower Garbage-to-Energy Plant is capable of producing 46-MW of power.

HPower’s primary function is to reduce the volume of municipal solid waste (MSW). The plant is capable of consuming 2,160 tons of garbage per day, reducing the volume of refuse that goes to the landfill by 90%. HPOWER processes the garbage and burns it in furnaces to produce steam that drives a turbine generator. The electricity generated by this waste-to-energy plant is distributed to customers by HECO.

The future of garbage-to-energy

HPower, which now supplies 46 MW of electricity to HECO, is seeking to add a third boiler which will increase its capacity to burn garbage from 600,000 to 725,000 tons per year. A new boiler could increase the reliability of the facility and the amount of electricity produced. H-Power estimates that since 1989, 500 acres have been saved from landfill use.

In his State of the City address, delivered in February 2006, Mayor Mufi Hannemann announced plans to bid both the waste stream currently going to HPower (in anticipation of expiration of the current contract) and the waste stream not currently committed to HPower. The announcement included an agreement for Hawaiian Electric to assist the City with the bidding process.

Mayor Hannemann said, “We’re partnering with Hawaiian Electric in an unprecedented way to explore new, alternative energy technologies fueled by municipal solid waste. This should improve the City’s capacity to convert trash to energy, cut the amount of waste going to the landfill, and reduce our dependence on imported oil.”

Maui and the Big Island, which depend on rapidly filling landfills for waste disposal, are also looking into garbage-to-energy plants.

How Waste-to-Energy works

--Energy Information Administration